What is Quality Assurance in Software Testing?

Quality assurance is a detailed testing process that ensures the end product complies with required quality standards by improving the software development life cycle. The primary job role of QA is certifying a product is up to the industry standards for it to evolve in the market.

Quality assurance is critical for all products because it provides the confidence that the product has undergone validation according to the pre-set standards. This procedure promises a quality and error-free product to ensure clients receive full-fledged services. It is an indication flag that signifies the product is reliable enough to sustain in the competitive market space.

Key Components of Quality Assurance in Software Testing

Pre-project, software project lifecycle, infrastructure, SQA, Standardization, and SQA Human Organization are the six key components involved in the betterment of the testing process.

Quality Assurance Vs Quality Control Understanding the Difference

The main difference between QA and QC is the former is process oriented while the latter is product oriented. QA is a proactive come preventive approach that aims at preventing future defects in the product or application while QC is a reactive approach that spots the defects and fixes them right away before delivering them to the client. The primary actions involved in QA are paperwork, audits, training, and enhancement-related management while QC deals with walkthroughs, inspections, and extensive testing to deliver a minimal-error product.

The Benefits of Quality Assurance in Software Testing

1. Saves Money

This assured process saves a lot of money for companies by affirming that product is meeting the desired quality standards. Releasing a product with too many bugs to the customer can hamper the growth of the business as each error incurs the client’s money under the enhancements category.

2. Saves Time

Fixing a bug in production is time-consuming when compared to fixing it in the initial phases of the development lifecycle.

3. Marks your Reputation

A company that strives to deliver quality products receives a good reputation among customers by winning the customer’s trust for future prospects. The credibility of the business is maintained as customers stick to companies that release bug-free products than the one that releases buggy products.

4. Reduces the Maintenance costs

Adapting the QA process in the software testing helps in avoiding major functionality errors that will demand more support in the future. The cost to employ a dedicated team for maintenance support will be reduced if the bugs are caught and fixed at an earlier stage.

How Quality Assurance Fits into the Software Development Life Cycle

Quality assurance is more likely to be responsible for the testing phase but almost all phases of the software development lifecycle have the role of QA. The role of QA in design is to understand the requirements and deliver a user-friendly product that will upscale the business. In the implementation, QA can analyze and suggest the negative impact on the application and help avoid it for a seamless user experience.

The key role of QA comes to role play in testing that covers preparing test cases, executing test reports, reporting bugs, and tracking them till closure. Next, during the deployment, the QA is expected to be proactive by working to check whether the major functionalities are working fine. The final role of QA is in maintenance which involves testing the customer-reported bugs and stamping them as working fine in the live environment.

Best Practices for Implementing the Effective Quality Assurance in Software Testing

The following set of QA practices is recommended to enhance your QA skills and the SDLC processes by streamlining the quality of the products in the ongoing phase.

1. Shift Left

Acting proactively as a QA and identifying bugs in the earlier Software development life cycle is mandatory to save time. Shift left and fix the bugs on the fly during the SDLC to create quality deliverables.

2. Adapt Manual Testing for Better User Experience

Manual testing covers important aspects like usability unlike automation improving the credibility of the applications. Employ adequate manpower to test the products from the end user perspective to create user-friendly products.

3. Test in Multiple Environments

An important role of QA is to test the application across multiple browsers and OS to ensure it’s working fine before handing it over to the customer. Cover all possible scenarios to avoid any major functionality break in the production stage.

4. Leverage Automation

Automate all the modules involved in the application to save time and identify the potential loopholes in the application. Fix them by employing skilled developers and rerunning the application to enhance the productivity of QA.

5. Pay attention to Customer Feedback

Every product is going to be handled at the end of the day by customers. So, let them explore the application and get their valuable feedback. Include them in your QA goals to create customer-satisfying products.

6. Focus on Application Security

Security of the applications is very important when it comes to online websites as clients may be annoyed by the ones that reveal their confidential business info. So, run the security test cases thoroughly to ensure the system passes all the criteria.

Quality Assurance Tools to Improve testing

Some competent QA automation tools are available in the market to ease the testing process and produce quality products. A few popular QA tools include Appium, Cucumber, Selenium, TestSigma, and Testwhiz which promise an end to end testing.

Challenges and Obstacles to implementing Quality Assurance in Testing

The biggest challenge of applying Quality assurance is it is a manual test process that consumes more time impacting the delivery timelines. Also, testers need to write multiple test scenarios and map them with test cases and run them manually every time which can lead to more bugs in the production if not done by a skilled QA. Delivering a buggy product can affect the recognition of the company among customers which is a big obstacle to its growth.

Conclusion

Quality Assurance is a skill that can be mastered by testers only by acquiring the right knowledge from qualified training institutes. In that line, Get Software Services provides a comprehensive online QA course for young students who want to excel as software testers. Our team of experienced faculties cover all the concepts in a detailed way to ensure the right knowledge is transferred to students turning them into talented software testers in the industry. We help you crack interviews by conducting mock interviews that will help you perform better and grab your dream job.