The purpose of creating any software is functionality and user-friendliness. But in the course of creation, bugs may arise that prevent the normal operation of the product. If bugs are not identified before release, there is a big risk of losing potential customers.
Any error in software testing does not always mean that the whole system is not working properly. It is enough to correct errors to restore the operation of the product. For these purposes, the implementation of all large projects involves QA testing. It allows ensuring the high quality of the software product, making it as user-friendly as possible.
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What Is QA Testing?
QA is an abbreviation for Quality Assurance. QA testing is a set of measures aimed at finding critical errors in the system. Tests cover all stages of development, release, and use of a software product, from project creation to testing, release, and post-release maintenance. Actions taken by software testing outsourcing company specialists at all stages of the life cycle are aimed at ensuring the high quality of the implemented project.
What Does QA Testing Include?
QA testing usually includes several stages:
- Identification of test items. This defines the separate parts of the software that need to be tested;
- Search for bugs or errors in the operation of a resource or program;
- Security testing;
- Evaluation of results, as well as retesting if necessary;
- Checking the results obtained for compliance with quality criteria;
- Preparation of measures to eliminate the identified bugs and errors.
Benefits That QA Testing Provides for Businesses
If you have doubts about whether you need to conduct QA testing of your project, then pay special attention to the benefits that you can get:
- The ability to conduct a secure business is especially important for people who use websites and applications to sell goods and services. An attacker only needs to gain access to the system to redirect customer payments to a completely different account. Therefore, it is important to conduct a comprehensive QA testing promptly, which will reveal the shortcomings in the system;
- Preventing errors at the stage of development is much cheaper than fixing bugs after the product release and during use;
- After releasing software with bugs, the company’s image weakens. In the future, it will be difficult to convince customers that all bugs have been fixed. Therefore, it is important to initially provide a quality product, especially when it comes to large projects.
Common Mistakes in QA Testing and Ways to Avoid Them
Below is a list of common qa testing mistakes. Study them carefully and try to avoid them in practice.
Pre-Release Testing
Testing at the end of the product development phase is an irrational approach. Every major function of the software needs to be checked. So, you should plan a testing schedule from the very beginning of the development process. An early check will help you identify errors and fix defects as rapidly as possible. This improves the software quality and reduces labor costs in the final stage of quality monitoring. It also gives the dev team the confidence that the software is constantly being innovated.
Use of Testing for Small Coverage
Another mistake in QA testing is that it is often used for little coverage. However, you need to cover the maximum, even if 100% coverage is not possible. When writing test scripts, try to maximize your coverage. This will allow you to identify global errors that can affect the operation of the software.
Ignoring Regression Tests
Many testers forget the importance of regression tests. But this is one of the most significant mistakes to avoid in QA testing. Regression tests are very useful for quality assurance. So, during regression testing, try to use the error graph to identify the part of the application that is most likely to occur.
Forgetting to Clean Test Code Before Final Software Release
This is the most common mistake made during QA testing. If a test requires changes to the main code to run successfully, it needs to be cleaned up after checking and fixing errors. Following, keeping records of test code is a useful practice. This saves time and resources.
Not Taking Advantage of the Benefits of Automated Testing
Process automation affects all possible areas of activity. Automated software testing makes it possible to facilitate and speed up routine and time-consuming processes. Therefore, you should not ignore modern automated test software, but rather apply it and get benefits. Widespread automated tools include eggPlant, Silk Mobile, SeeTest, NativeDriver, etc. Choose the one that suits your goals and apply it successfully. Using multiple tools at the same time is also appropriate.
So, QA testing is very important to create a quality product. It allows eliminating errors on time and ensures a high quality of the development process and its results. Therefore, QA testing should be approached as responsibly as possible. The main thing is to avoid the widespread mistakes that were described in this review.
