QA Outsourcing

Testing is an essential part and success factor of the software development process. If the test management is carried out correctly, tests can help to avoid software errors and ensure a high quality of the product. There are a lot of testing practices to make sure that your solution works correctly and can be used easily across multiple environments and platforms. These methods are usually divided into functional and non-functional tests. Functional testing and non functional testing: What is that all about? Functional testing is a type of testing that focuses on the business requirements of the software product. The main idea behind functional testing is to ensure that each functionality of software works as specified in the requirement documents. These types of tests focus only on checking the results of operations, completely bypassing the intermediate states of the system during their execution. Functional tests chiefly involve black box testing techniques, where you don't peer into internal code structure and rely mainly on specifications. Non-functional testing is a testing technique that focuses on the evaluation of the non-functional aspects of the system. It checks the parameters that are not tested in functional tests, such as performance, usability, reliability, etc. Non-functional tests are as important as functional tests as they help to understand how the system works. The main goal of this type of testing is to provide the best experience to the end-users of the software product.  What are the functional testing types? Since functional testing tests is a methodology that examines various parameters of a software product, different types of functional tests are performed. Let’s have a look at some of them: Unit tests Unit testing is the first level of testing which is usually performed by developers. This process ensures that individual components of a software are functional at the code level and react as expected. Unit tests can be performed manually, but automating the process speeds deployment cycles and extends test coverage. Integration tests Integration tests are designed to determine if independently developed components of software work properly when they are connected to each other. Integration tests ensure that communication between different units runs smoothly. Those tests try to uncover different types of errors such as incompatibilities in the message or data formats as well as invalid input or output ...

In today's fast-paced software world, quick delivery of the product is often not an option but a necessity. Building software also requires a high level of flexibility in responding to the constantly changing market trends and customers’ demands. The problem is that with traditional project management, a quick change of plans inevitably leads to higher costs or longer project duration. Luckily there are agile methods that allow us to avoid such pitfalls. This refers not only to software development but also to testing processes. What is Agile testing? Agile in software development is an approach that focuses on the people performing their work and their cooperation aimed at delivering the right product to the customer. It is an iterative development process that creates requirements through constant collaboration between the client and cross-functional self-organizing teams. Agile testing is a practice that follows the rules of agile development and helps create solutions tailored to customer needs. What do we understand by agile testing process? The approach to software testing in an agile environment is not very different from the  traditional practices. Still, there are few clear distinctions in the process. First, testing in Agile is not a separate activity but an essential part of the development process which is considered to be a preventative measure. This means that the tests have to be performed much more frequently and in sprints. At the end of each sprint, which usually lasts from one to two weeks, the fully-tested software should be available, which is then delivered to the customer. All issues discovered during the tests are recorded and evaluated in retrospect, which further increases the quality and the test coverage achieved. It is essential for all relevant tests, such as unit, functional or performance tests, to be planned in advance and implemented at all levels. This helps to detect and fix the problems in a timely manner. It should be mentioned that automating test procedures allows running the tests much more often - like several times a day - and minimizing the feedback cycle. It is important to use automated regression tests in an agile environment. This type of testing ensures that the new functionality of the product (which is being continuously built) does not introduce new bugs and that the previous functionality works as intended. One of the most important activities in an agile environment is conducting the exploratory ...

Why your Project Needs UI/UX Testing This article was born out of an active discussion that sparked during one of our retrospective meetings. Our team was discussing the issues that our clients often bring up during calls: what is the most important type of testing today? Which testing activities require particular attention from human testers? In other words — which tests can’t be skipped and must be done by an attentive testing specialist? Many experts focus on more or less similar tests, only adapting the definitions in accordance with the respective target audience. In this article, we won't name all the testing types once again, but we’ll talk about the most important one — UI/UX testing. So, what is UI testing? User interface testing (UI testing) is a type of testing in which testers need to make sure that all buttons, fields, labels, and other items on the screen work as specified. UI testing involves checking screens with controls, such as toolbars, colors, fonts, sizes, buttons, icons, etc., and how they respond to the user input. Simply put, with the help of UI testing we see how an application, website, or software will interact with the end-user. Essentially, User Interface testing checks how the tested product performs based on the following criteria: Ease of use Consistency and logic Accessibility Compatibility In order to achieve effective results during UI testing, the tester must answer at least two important questions:  Are all features of the tested software clear and easy to use? Can a user navigate through the app without experiencing system errors or malfunctions? There’s also a bonus question:   3.   Will the interface guide users towards making the right decisions? Usually, User Interface testing is applied to end products, but I suggest making it an integral part of testing throughout the entire product development process.  Small changes made at any stage of the development can have an disproportionately big impact on the UI.  So, it is important to configure the user interface in accordance with these changes and provide feedback that is received during the testing sessions. It turns out that even a minor issue such as lack of a button or a typing error can lead to a huge problem in the overall design. It goes without saying that it is much cheaper to fix UI bugs at the development stage. But unfortunately, bugs are sometimes missed, so companies have to deal with fixing them after the product is ...

Why You Need QA and How It Can Save Your Money The IT industry’s default management method is (mostly) Agile. One sprint can last for about two weeks and contains a specific list of tasks to be done. Every sprint should comprise five steps of the software testing lifecycle, and some pieces of requirements should be implemented. Quality assurance needs to be an integral part of every single one of those sprints. Good QA can save your business. Good QA introduced at an early stage of development can even help your business grow faster.  Here’s how you can help your business succeed in the long run with good QA as a foundational part of your development process.  Why do you need a QA engineer? Here are thirteen core responsibilities of the QA engineers: Analysis and clarification of requirements with the customer or business analysts; Planning the testing process; Writing test cases (test scripts); Functional testing; Identification of problem areas, their inclusion in the tracking system; Discussion of fixes with developers; Tracking the life cycle of errors; Re-test of fixed defects; Testing analysis; Optimization of the testing process; Analysis of teamwork processes; Process improvement; Maintenance of test documentation. What role does QA play in development? To find out more about the importance of testing and how to do quality assurance, you can have a look at the significant issues that the role of QA is responsible for. Prerequisites for the software: We should realize what we are developing and testing, and the degree of this awareness has to be presented in figures. Potential risks or missed problems at the specification level can lead to the most serious and expensive errors. The quality of the product: It’s necessary to evaluate the attributes of development and program to make forecasts and assess risks. You should know how good and reliable the product is. You should rely not only on the presence or absence of errors found but just predicting whether there are many possible problems. Features of the QA team: A qualified QA team lead will help the team manage the testing process, plan tests to meet specified production timings, and make sure that the current QA team’s capabilities match the demands of the project. The qualification of the team: In addition to the quality of the product itself, you need to measure the effectiveness of the QA process and the team. To continually optimize and improve the ...

Probably anyone who is connected to software development has heard about technical debt. But both salespeople, account managers and probably even CEOs rarely understand what tech debt means, how to measure technical debt, as well as the necessity to pay it. According to Claranet survey, 48% of 100 IT decision-makers from the UK, say that their non - technical coworkers have no idea about the financial impact of tech debt.  At the same time, the risks of not resolving technical debt must be clear not only to developers but also to other members of the team. This will help to acknowledge the need for changes and provide an understanding of why not every feature/project can be implemented quickly. But the question remains — how to explain tech debt to a non-technical audience? How can we define Tech debt? Technical debt or code debt is a metaphor that refers to all consequences that arise due to poorly written code and compromises in the development. This concept, in particular, includes the extra effort that has to be done to improve the software or to add additional functionality. Probably the best way to explain the term "technical debt" is with the help of an analogy. “I like very much the definition of technical debt provided by Wikipedia: technical debt can be compared to monetary debt. What does it mean? If technical debt is not repaid, it can accumulate 'interest', making it harder to implement changes later on. It's the best definition that was coined by tech specialist (American programmer Ward Cunningham) to justify refactoring costs in front of the CFO of a company,” says Alex Gostev, Project Portfolio Manager at QArea. It is quite easy to explain the concept of tech debt to business owners. It is like taking a credit. For example, you can take out a loan to open a new office for the company. But if you take that credit to carry out this plan, the interest occurs. In other words, you will pay more in the long run. Some metaphoric parallels with real-life can also be a useful tool for explaining tech debt issues to non-tech specialists. We can talk about technical debt as of some mess in the house, for example in the kitchen area. Imagine that you have cooked your dinner you decide to leave the kitchen without cleaning up. You continue to do it every day and at some point the kitchen (read "software") becomes really chaotic so it is impossible to cook (read "add new features") there anymore. Sometimes it is better to ...

Information technology plays a crucial role in the success of many businesses. Companies rely on IT both in day-to-day operations and more challenging tasks. IT increases the efficiency of businesses, saves money, drives innovation and enables companies to stay ahead of their competitors. Therefore, it is very important to ensure the continuous and effective work of the IT systems. What is risk management? As IT systems become more complex and error-prone, many threat scenarios with high risks emerge. IT risk management is aimed at identification, evaluation, analysis, and mitigation of potential risks. The idea of risk management is to monitor the system throughout its lifecycle and provide solutions and plans of action for possible bad scenarios. This ranges from the conception of the project, through the development and implementation of the software, and all the way to the operation and decommissioning of the systems. If ignored, technical issues can cause serious harm to businesses. This ranges from slowing in production to loss of revenue or even to the existential threat to the company.  There are numerous types of IT risks such as hardware and software failures, spam, malicious attacks, viruses, data loss, data misuse or data espionage. Usually, IT management focuses on two types of risks such as malware or data loss. This often leads to the neglect of other types of risks, which in turn can cause harm to your business. There are a lot of issues that shouldn't be ignored, and one of them is technical debt.  What is technical debt? How do we define tech debt? Technical debt is a metaphor that is used to describe the imperfection of the code quality. For example, sometimes a team of developers makes some code shortcuts just to meet a deadline or to speed up time-to-market and let the company deliver the product quicker. Often the end justifies the means, but when developers make those suboptimal decisions they build up debt. And like with monetary debt, they should pay it in the future but together with interest. In this case - it is the time and effort to improve the code in order to make it efficient. What can be said about technical debt infrastructure? Tech debt can be caused by both intentional and unintentional factors. The intentional causes include time constraints, source code complexity, coding rules violations, unclear communication and wrong assumptions due to the lack of technical knowledge, etc. And ...

Professionals working in software development and testing have to deal with specific kinds of requirement specifications when tackling a new product. Accurate and clear requirements are needed for a software development team to work on the creation of the right product, and this documentation makes the overall development process easier. There are different types of requirement specifications, but right now, we are going to describe three main document types that are used specifically in software testing. These are SRS (software requirement specification), FRS (functional requirement specification) and BRS (business requirement specification). It’s worth noting that all these documents are used depending on the company type, standards and process organization. Down below, we will tell you more about each of these documents and explain the main difference between FRS and SRS documents and the difference between BRS and FRS in software testing.  What Is SRS Document? SRS or Software Requirement Specification is a document prepared by a team of system analysts that is used to describe software that will be developed, the main business purpose and functionality of a certain product and ways how it performs its core functions. An SRS is a basis for any project as it consists of a framework that will be followed by each team member. An SRS is also a base of a contract with stakeholders (users/clients) that includes all the details about the functionality of the future product and how it is supposed to run. An SRS is used widely by software developers during the process of product or program development.  An SRS includes both functional and non-functional requirements and uses cases as well. A perfect SRS document takes into account not just the way software will interact with other software or when it’s embedded in hardware but also potential users and the ways they will interact with the software. It also contains references to tables and diagrams to get a clear understanding of all product-related details.  An SRS document helps team members from different departments stay on the same and make sure all the requirements are fulfilled. This document also allows minimizing software development expenses and time.  What Is BRS Document? So what is BRS meaning in software testing? BRS stands for a business requirement specification which is aimed to show how to meet the business requirements on a broader level. A BRS ...

Code quality and velocity of production are two crucial but sometimes conflicting factors for software development projects. It is not surprising that sooner or later each development team faces the issue “speed versus advancement”. No doubt that both code quality and delivery speed matter. Good code quality makes future development simpler, quicker, and more stable. At the same time, a high velocity of production makes the company more agile, and thus more interesting for the customers. But how can a software company find the right balance between short time-to-market and minimizing poor quality code? What is Technical debt? How can we define tech debt? Technical debt is the term used to describe code that was not written properly and can harm the ability to add new features in the future. We can think of tech debt as the work that should be done to improve the code in order to make it more efficient and clear. On the other hand, these improvements won't necessarily bring additional value to the business. Originally the term Technical debt was coined by an American programmer Ward Cunningham, the inventor of the first wiki. The idea was to think about tech debt as an analogy to financial debt. If there is a debt — there is an interest that should be paid. And in the case of tech debt, the interest is equal to the additional development work that it takes to add new features after sub-par code was used. What can lead to technical debt? Tech debt may occur as a result of unreasonable requirements, misguided assumptions, poor communication, or unrealistic timelines. It is not uncommon that developers cut corners to meet the deadlines, but the question remains — should they always do that? Speed vs Quality? No one will argue that both code quality and velocity of production are important. For obvious reasons, different types of companies choose high-quality development at the expense of speed and vice versa. On one hand, we have a very natural desire of startups to move quickly, so they can release their product to the market as fast as possible. On the other hand, we have the logic of well-established companies whose profile is too high to produce low-quality products, so they usually lean towards the quality mode. Moreover, the employees of the same company can have different and even opposite views on speed vs quality of development. Salespeople or product managers are usually considered to be advocates for speed as they see the ...

For those who are planning to develop software, it’s important to choose a fitting software testing strategy. There are five primary testing methodologies software developers use to create and test their projects: Waterfall Testing MethodologyRapid Software TestingPrototype MethodologyAgile Testing MethodologySpiral Software Testing To determine which methodology is best for your project itself and your team, you’ll need to thoughtfully plan out your project. You have to decide how you’re going to build the project, as the answer to this question will determine the workflow of your project and the delegation of tasks to your team members. Once this information is decided, you can begin to evaluate which software testing services fit the needs of your project and your team best. What Questions You Should Ask to Choose the Right Testing Methodology In many cases, teams go about choosing the right testing methodology in the wrong way. Instead of choosing a methodology to use based on research, you need to focus on the project itself. In many cases, the problem of choosing the most suitable development/test strategy can be omitted if your team takes a step back and focuses on the project’s goal and its functions. Your team should ask some basic questions about the project, and, depending on the answers, build a broader picture of it. In the simplest terms, every project should include a planning brainstorm session. At this meeting, be sure to ask the following primary questions: Do the project characteristics limit you to a specific strategy?How does my client prefer to communicate and work?Is there a methodology that is particularly suited to my team? The answers to these questions should give you sufficient information to move forward in choosing an appropriate project methodology to implement and follow. If you find that there are many large tasks or you have sub-teams, it might be best to continue the brainstorm and allocate the tasks even further. Finding out all the workload that needs to be completed during the planning stages will help ensure that you choose the handiest and appropriate project methodology before you start. Common Types Of QA Methodologies You Should Know About There are many different types of methodologies to choose from for your project, but not all of them are proven to work well for a variety of teams and projects. The five project methodologies outlined below are among the most common ones ...

Outsourcing became a common practice for many companies and businesses today. The benefits of outsourcing are diverse. In this article, you will find out what is outsourcing, what types of outsourcing exist, and the main reasons why companies are willing to outsource their software development tasks. What Is Outsourcing and Why Might a Company Practice Outsourcing? Outsourcing means the allocation of specific tasks by a contractor to third-party specialists. Outsourcing comes in handy when a company or business can’t control and handle all the processes internally. Entrusting business processes to external professionals became an everyday reality. Software development, customer support services, content writing are one of the most popular tasks that are outsourced to other companies. The main reason for such growing popularity of outsourcing is the lack of internal experts and cost-saving initiative. For some businesses, there is no need to hire an in-house team of professionals to perform certain tasks. Thus, outsourcing is the best option that can help a company get all the jobs done effectively and for the reduced labor costs. Your company or business can benefit from outsourcing as well. After you allocate a task to the chosen outsourcing company, as a service provider, they become responsible for performing the job and maintaining the highest quality. Why Outsource Software Development? Outsourcing software development routine is a widespread practice today. Whereas hiring an internal team requires way too much time, money, and resources, outsourcing is a much more convenient option. Here are the top 6 benefits that will convince you that outsourcing software development tasks is a good idea for your business: 1. Reduced costs The main benefit of outsourcing consists of much lower labor costs. Therefore, it is cost-efficient and profitable to reduce your expenditures and significantly save budget. At the same time, you will get quality professional service at a reasonable price. Also, you save time and money on recruitment, training new in-house staff, offering benefits, etc. 2. Larger talent pool available When hiring in-house local employees, you don’t have much choice. Outsourcing allows you to expand your search and choose from a variety of companies and the best professionals from all over the world. It is possible to find the right team of experts that will meet all your requirements to achieve better results. The ...