Running a profitable business is contingent upon having high-quality software. However, a lot of businesses put expansion ahead of error-free results and frequently ignore the damaging effects of software errors. When it comes to software development, the argument between releasing new features and refining current ones frequently goes in favour of the former. This distinction needs to be revised, as sacrificing software quality in the name of speed often results in big losses down the road. It leads to increased expenses, decreased user uptake, and delayed feature releases. You can avoid this by establishing effective QA testing strategies.
You must realize that QA software testing involves more than just finding bugs. Instead, the focus is on gathering objective data so that others can make well-informed decisions. Developing a methodical, functional approach to quality assurance helps you learn more about the product you’re testing and helps you discover issues you might not have noticed otherwise. The market for software testing is expected to be worth $60.5 billion globally by 2026, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 6.2%.
This blog will offer a deep dive into QA testing, its types, the QA testing process, and a list of the best QA testing strategies.
What is QA testing?
In software testing, quality assurance (QA) is an organized approach meant to guarantee that a product or service satisfies requirements and client expectations. It involves a range of tasks including development, planning, design, and production with the goal of boosting a product’s quality.
Based on the objectives of the project, a testing strategy specifies software QA techniques. The strategy is an essential planning tool because it helps you decide exactly what actions to take and when.
Software testing strategies guarantee that the development process is transparent to all project participants, providing insight into how testing influences the quality of the final product. Both the product and the development process benefit greatly from a strategic approach to quality assurance. You can be successful in enhancing development, minimizing risks, and cutting expenses because of the testing strategy.
These strategies should be developed as unique solutions, tailored to the demands of the team, the project’s objectives, and the features of the product. They should also be capable of adapting to any new challenges that might surface in the dynamic IT environment.
Types of QA Testing
There are several types of QA testing, each intended to address specific situations:
Functional Testing: Verifies that a system performs as intended.
Performance Testing: Evaluates an application’s stability, responsiveness, and speed under various load conditions.
Usability Testing: Determines how user-friendly the system is.
Security Testing: Makes sure there are no weaknesses that hackers could take advantage of.
The QA Testing Process
While software testing methodologies may differ between organizations, the key stages stay the same. They are:
Requirements analysis: Early in the development cycle, QA analysts carefully examine project requirements to obtain a clear understanding of their involvement parameters. This analysis is essential because it lays the foundation for efficient quality control.
Planning: After project requirements are understood, QA specialists start the test planning stage. For every step of the software engineering cycle, they specify the necessary testing types and tools, define the scope of work, and create a project-specific testing strategy.
Creation of test cases: Test cases include actions taken on a system to ensure that it is operating correctly. These cases guarantee that features in software adhere to guidelines. Creating detailed procedures for every testing sequence, including both automated and manual testing techniques, is the process of developing test cases.
Test execution: This stage entails carrying out pre-written test cases, evaluating the discrepancies between expected and realized outcomes, and recording bugs and errors. To solve these issues, QA testers might develop subtests and then submit the finished products to the team for further development.
Verification: This involves retesting the product after the issues found have been resolved. Regression testing and analysis are used in this process to verify that found bugs have been successfully fixed and to find any new problems, guaranteeing maximum product functionality.
Reporting: Reporting is essential to the quality assurance process because it gives stakeholders important information about the calibre of the software that is being developed. Teams can decide how to handle any issues that come up during testing by using clear and thorough reporting.
Top 7 QA Testing Strategies
- Combine Test Automation with Manual Testing
Both automated and manual testing should be a part of your quality assurance process. It is crucial to choose the right kind of test for each feature and stage of the product.
Manual testing allows businesses to cover a broad range of conditions and scenarios. Manual testing is favoured for exploratory, ad hoc, and usability testing missions.
Automation works best when it comes to load testing, white box testing, and other performance tests. Automation should be used for any test that must be run repeatedly.
- Define Test Cases
A QA strategy’s overall success depends on its test cases. Software testing projects with disorganized guidelines are ineffective and expensive. Instead, give QA testers clear documentation to make sure tests are carried out logically and methodically. Anyone developing software should be able to easily understand and follow templates.
- Include Agile Methodologies
With agile methodologies, quality assurance testing is not a stand-alone step but is instead seamlessly integrated into the design and development processes. Collaboration or communication between designers, developers, the QA team, and occasionally even users is required with this collaborative approach. After your teams finish a quick design or development cycle, there will be a concentrated period of quality control and feature testing for the recently added feature.
- Integrate CI/CD
In software development, continuous delivery (CD) and continuous integration (CI) techniques are applied to boost the agile methodology. With continuous integration, the code is maintained in a central repository. Developers regularly upload brief segments of code to the central repository and work on making small adjustments to the code.
Regular releases of new versions of your product are made possible by continuous delivery, which also offers a quick and effective way to fix bugs and other problems that affect the user experience.
When CI and CD are not integrated, developers split up their work and piece together various code segments later in the development cycle. This could lead to problems with the interaction of different code segments as well as a lack of coherence and compatibility.
- Look Into Past Errors
Not only must you locate and address bugs, but you also need to ensure that they don’t reappear. By investigating and analyzing, you can determine which of your app’s functionalities are most vulnerable to breaking. To increase automation in these areas, you can identify patterns by examining previous defects and customer complaints.
Make use of this data to pose further queries regarding errors and bugs, such as: What caused this issue, why did it arise, etc.
- Use Shift-Left Approach
“Shifting left” in the context of software development means shifting testing “to the left,” or earlier in the calendar, or to an earlier phase of development. Adopting a shift-left mentality helps your team find bugs faster and release stable versions more quickly. Rather than waiting until the project is complete, continuous integration testing should be done as soon as the code is committed. By testing as you go, you can prevent building on top of faulty code and minimize QA feedback loops. The shift-left approach brings quality closer to the source, which improves overall efficiency.
- Conduct User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
At the end of product development, real users should be made to perform user acceptance testing, or UAT, before the QA team deploys the software system into the production environment. This is to ensure that the software system or product functions as intended for the target user base in practical situations. UAT helps verify that the product meets all specifications, be it technical or commercial.
Key Takeaways
QA is essential to the goal of delivering flawless software because it gives users the assurance of quality they require. Teams can easily integrate QA into their workflows by putting the aforementioned strategies into practice. In addition to error-free software, the end product is user-centric and highly effective, making it stand out in the highly competitive world of modern software development. You can avail of top-notch QA services, QA consulting services, IT consulting services, and even hire developers by collaborating with an adept software development company.