No matter how much attention is paid to software development, there is no way to guarantee the product is completely free of bugs or other issues. This is where quality assurance and testing come in handy as integral parts of the process.

Unpolished software has very slim chances of succeeding, but tests serve more than just spot bugs – they improve the development process in many ways. In this post, we take a closer look at the role of software testing.

Testing vs Quality Assurance – one and the same?

Testing and AQ have some overlap, but they are not exactly the same thing.

Testing is focused on detecting defects or bugs in the app. The process involves checking how the software operates under stress and finding possible errors. Its purpose is to make sure that the application functions correctly under various conditions and provides valuable feedback to developers, who then iron out the bugs.

Quality assurance (QA for short), on the other hand, is a broader, more systematic approach. It’s a way of assessing the quality of the product and making sure it meets the client’s expectations. But QA is not only about testing – it also involves measuring the quality of processes, improving processes, and preventing defects.

QA testing is an essential part of every project and may impact its success. More and more clients acknowledge the role of quality assurance in the development of their product. But if you’re still on the unimpressed side, here are a few good reasons to boost your appreciation of testing.

Testers help create a more polished user experience

Good testers, on top of spotting bugs, will help to make the app more intuitive. Because certain UX-related issues may be easily overlooked in the development process, the testing stage is a good opportunity to spot various imperfections and work on more streamlined user experience. This is increasingly important because, as the competition on the market becomes more intense, non-intuitive software has no chances of survival in the long term. Users are spoilt with choice and may not have the patience to give your app another chance.

By offering a better, more seamless experience, you simply increase your chances on the market. High customer satisfaction spells higher revenue and brand loyalty.

Improved customer satisfaction

Retaining mobile app users has been found notoriously difficult as only one in four app users return after day one. This is because the truly exceptional quality is needed to inspire user loyalty.

By introducing QA earlier in the development process, you gain the benefit of valuable feedback before customers tell you the app is buggy or not working as they expected.

Negative feedback out of public channels

Only a measly 4% of app users will complain about a poor experience. This means there’s a lot more unspoken negative feedback and silent churning than you realize. Testing thoroughly before the app goes public is the best strategy to expose an unpolished app to scathing criticism. Testing basically allows you to contain negative feedback within your team.

Good testers think like users and will help you reveal issues and areas for improvement that would have otherwise slipped under your radar.

Even the best developers need testers

Skimping on testers doesn’t pay off in the long run. Although developers write unit tests, they usually don’t perform integration and other types of testing, and in most cases only focus on the “happy path” testing (i.e. proving that the code they wrote does what it was supposed to), and rarely execute more uncommon test cases, i.e. the app is not used in an expected way.

Also – developers in most companies don’t automate testing themselves (test automation engineers or software engineers do that). And regression testing (verifying that old, fixed at some point bugs were not introduced again) is performed by QA engineers.

QA keeps the customer happy

Customer satisfaction is vital for any organization. When customers are happy about your product or service, your company is more likely to succeed.

Keeping the predefined plan in mind is critical. Losing the focus can cause non-alignment between the end product and the project requirements. This, in turn, may result in reworking and violation of the determined timeline.

QA is a set of processes ensuring that you deliver a high-quality product to your customer. These processes, among other things, define whether the software meets quality standards and quality criteria or whether the software fulfils the customers’ needs.

The QA testing process at BSG

Anna Kowal QA

We spoke to Anna Kowal, Quality Assurance Team Lead at Better Software Group for a deep dive into the testing process at the company.

The testing process at BSG is based on the belief that quality should be ensured at every stage of software development. Ideally, quality assurance should be an integral part of the software development cycle as soon as possible. In line with this philosophy, we try to introduce tests already at very early stages of a project’s life, such as the requirement gathering, analysis and design stages.
QA for us means providing support for building high-quality products that meet the customer’s requirements, which is why every project in our company has at least one tester. We usually carry out manual tests, but we also have projects in which the tests are automated – it depends on the complexity of the project and the individual needs of the client.
The most important thing in the tests, Anna adds, is well-prepared documentation and good contact with both the development team and the client. It is good practice to regularly discuss introduced changes with the client in order to confirm the current requirements or correct them in the event of change requests. To maintain continuity in the care of software quality, it is also important to regularly carry out regression tests and develop the competencies currently held by our testers.

Summary

Our goal in this post was to show that QA testing can be beneficial at every single stage of the software development life cycle. Even at the early requirements stage, a QA engineer may spot potentially problematic functionalities and make sure that the requirements are precisely defined and well-understood by the whole development team.

A well-implemented quality assurance strategy helps developers retain laser focus on customer requirements. And that’s not all – QA comes in handy when defining user stories. it’s not only about the end-product tests, but also testing the functionalities before production and UX-oriented testing. At this stage bugs and errors are defined, specialists ensure that the system complies with the requirements, and the product really works and looks as intended.

Putting best practices of software QA testing to good use helps the whole team deliver truly great solutions that meet the needs and expectations of the client.