Quality Assurance (QA) or Software Quality Assurance (SQA) is an arranged and efficient model of exercises necessary to satisfactorily ensure that a product conforms to prerequisites as part of software improvement.
Remember that the scope of quality is not limited to software testing. For example, it also depends on how adequately requirements are formulated and maintained.
This exceptional issue serves as a platform for experts to present hypotheses, results, findings, and various advances in software quality assurance.
Quality Assurance Process
Below are some quality features of the quality assurance process -.
Focus on the user experience
Testing is crucial at all stages of the project. However, the most important point is the user experience.
If the UX is poor, it inevitably means that the quality is not up to par. Although this will likely lead to changes in the earlier stages of software development, the user experience should always come first.
Automation and Continuous Integration
Automation is essential as it enables rapid review and supports continuous integration – an important part of the agile approach.
Automation is also a solution to reduce costs and improve the productivity of your QA staff. It is one of the main reasons QA engineers need to train themselves and perform automation processes.
Test and Code Coverage
Many QA managers talk about “test coverage”, which gives a good impression of the quality of the product.
Even though you perform 100% test coverage, you need to aim for at least 90% functional code coverage to get the best results.
The Shift-Left Approach
Software testing usually starts as soon as the coding phase is complete. However, for optimal quality in an agile strategy, you need to drive focus and start reviewing and testing right at the beginning of the project. This way, bugs are guaranteed to be caught earlier, saving both money and time.
It also ensures a positive relationship with the developers in the group, speeds up the application’s delivery, and takes remarkable test coverage into account.
Intelligent Testing
Complete and thorough testing can now and again turn into a challenge, as numerous employees do not have the resources or time to test every sensible combination of cases.
But you should be smart about how and what you test. It implies you ought to talk to the engineer to discover little experiments that uncover the best bugs.
Error prevention
QA managers prepare to discover bugs, but a smart QA specialist will also figure out how to avoid them at all costs.
Traditional QA begins with testing at the UI level. This methodology prevents errors from reaching the top level of development, leading to more serious problems and delayed delivery. On the other hand, an agile process starts with the functional and unit tests and then moves to the UI phase.
Also, focus on the big, critical bugs and errors first, rather than many small bugs.
Portability
The software can adapt to different environments. For example, a framework should work just as efficiently on a web platform as it does on a mobile phone.
The versatility, installability, replaceability, and compliance of the product should capture accordingly.
Reliability
A system crash is not a unique situation. However, in quality testing, you need to check the system’s ability to withstand component failure. The system should be able to regain full control even after a possible product malfunction.
Documentation
This process manages the management and archiving of documents. Any change in a record is done using the appropriate change control method. Approval of all types of documents is also done in this process.
Methods used in quality assurance
There are several types of QA tests, all of which are important to ensure that your application is free of bugs. Below, we present the most important QA testing methods to give you a comprehensive understanding of the testing process and how it can improve your application, product, or software.
Non-Functional Testing
QA testing can be divided into two areas: functional and non-functional testing. Before we get into functional testing, let us take a look at the four phases of non-functional testing -.
Vulnerability testing
Vulnerability testing involves testing a website or application to find security holes and vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. This phase of testing aims to ensure that there are no security risks that could compromise users’ information or other sensitive data.
Compatibility Testing
Similarity testing involves checking that the product is fully compatible with the software and hardware on which it will run.
At this stage, several components are tested, from Internet browsers to hardware and operating systems to integrated modules – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Usability testing
Usability testing involves checking whether the software is intuitive and easy to use. This phase of the testing process aims to ensure that the end-user can use the product without dissatisfaction or confusion due to its design and UI.
Performance Testing
Performance testing involves verifying that the product performs adequately under various conditions that could affect users.
Performance testing aims to ensure that the application runs as it should and to use load testing to determine its limitations.
Functional tests
Functional tests have four segments. Following are the segments:
Unit Testing
Unit testing is the testing of individual software modules or parts that make up a system or application.
The module’s developers typically write these tests as part of a test-driven improvement strategy (e.g., Agile, XP, or Scrum) before the module is created as part of the specification. Each module function is tested by a specific unit test installation written in a similar programming language as the module.
Integration testing
These tests are usually completed with a combination of manual tests and automated functional tests, as it is easy to create automated tests for specific integrated components.
System Testing
System tests extend the scope of integration testing and test the entire framework. A standard system test involves running the entire framework to find neglected bugs, stability issues, and serious problems in advance.
The first three phases of functional testing involve a steady expansion of scope, from a single unit to many integrated units to an entire system.
Acceptance Testing
Acceptance testing is the last period of useful programming testing and guarantees that all task or item prerequisites meet. It also ensures that customers and end-users have tested the system to ensure it works as assumed and meets all of their defined requirements.
Conclusion
Software quality assurance encompasses the entire development cycle to ensure that a product meets its specifications at the best possible quality.
