Why QA Testing is Essential for Software Development

The importance of quality assurance is great. Before QA became mandatory in software development, there was a common confusion. Why bother, if the developers run the program before release?

To comprehend why it is essential, let’s go deep into the details of the quality assurance process, identify what is an ideal website testing checklist, and even more. So, why QA is essential?

“Testing is an infinite process of comparing the invisible to the ambiguous in order to avoid the unthinkable happening to the anonymous.”— James Bach

QA teams catch the problems before the customers do. Hence, becoming the best friend of the developer, the same as editor to a writer. Each stage of the development process needs a QA to assure it meets the required standards.

It refers to both the external and internal features of the software. QA analyses software reliability to determine the defects. And by a defect, we mean anything that does not match the requirements of the client. 

Software quality can be measured with two main categories:

Functional Quality: How well a product adapts to the fundamental design, based on the functional requirements.
Structural Quality: How well the product fulfills the non-functional needs such as usability and security.

Software Quality Assurance includes the following activities:

What exactly QA testing provides for the software development process? Here are some strong points that must be highlighted.

Preventing major failures:

QA includes a systematic set of actions. They guarantee that the products conform to standards and procedures.  Products include associated data, software, documentation and even reporting paperwork.

QA assures that the above-mentioned operate throughout the whole development cycle. This process mainly confirms with comparison methods. It brings the risk of failures to the least possible. 

In various industries where software processes are involved safety is fundamental. The mission of the QA is to guarantee that software processes meet the standards. Failing devices can potentially lead to serious injury or often lead to loss of life.

Cost Control:

When applying QA examination processes the related cost of finding bugs is considerable. If a significant number of bugs pass undetected, your budget may exceed the initial investments.

Getting quality checks done in time, prevents you from high risks. You are ensuring the customer that the project will be done within the budget and schedule. 

Some expenses arise within QA measurement processes. These expenses are less than the costs that occur when the customer finds the defect. The failure rates show you how to deal with a specific situation. For example, is the project worth spending more money on bug fixing or it is better to ditch the project.

Keeping it fresh:

As the programmers stand too close to the product, it needs to be reviewed from another point of view. Here comes the quality engineer to make the revision. Instead of waiting for the completion of the product QA testers find and fix errors as early as possible.

In other cases, the code would not be fresh in a developer’s mind. To ensure that the project is up to date, the QA tester works jointly with the development team. By testing each portion in different stages, they supervise the complete process.

The overall success of the product immensely depends on its ability to win the market. Therefore, QA resolves problems that may occur before reaching the consumer market.

Credits: Medium

Keep in mind that there is a considerable difference between the checkups that developers and QA engineers do. Developers focus on finding ways to solve a problem efficiently and with elegance.  

Quality engineers do the opposite. They concentrate on finding all possible ways to make it fail. Developers make solutions and keep those solutions as detailed as possible. Quality engineers analyze if those solutions are usable by real people.

The customers may use them in the most peculiar ways. Developers concentrate on technologies, and quality engineers are customer-oriented.

Conclusion

Every developer needs to be confident about their product. This precious confidence is given by the QA testers in a development life cycle. In other words, ensure that the product behaves itself as we want it to be.

Even the most automated processes include the human factor. From minor mistakes to critical errors can be prevented with QA. A professional QA team is a warrant to having a happy and satisfied customer. Make it not a single time act but a habit.