Why is a Quality Assurance tester needed on a software development team? Often dedicated Quality Assurance (QA) testers get overlooked by project managers and clients, seeing them as an option rather than a requirement. QA testing plays a critical role in the process of software development. It saves money and time by spotting bugs and errors early in the software development life-cycle.
Recently developed software may have inconsistencies, redundancies, and imperfections; therefore, proper QA testing is mandatory. The testing ensures that the software product a company develops meets all requirements and provides value to end-users having a long lifespan.
In this article, we will cover:
- What are Quality Assurance and Software Quality Assurance?
- How does Quality Assurance work?
- Why Is a Quality Assurance Tester Needed on a Software Development Team?
- What are the benefits of having a QA Tester on your team?
- Can developers do SQA Testing?
What Are Quality Assurance And Software Quality Assurance?
Quality Assurance (QA) means auditing the systems to improve the quality of a product in general. Through a careful QA, you guarantee the development and performance of an application to find errors or bugs in the code.
On the other hand, Software Quality Assurance means securing software quality in all development phases. Contrary to prevalent belief, SQA testers are not limited to searching for bugs and defects: they are also responsible for providing an intuitive User Interface (UI) and that the software meets all functional and non-functional requirements.
QA testers most important job is designing and executing specific software tests. Regression, unitary, and smoke tests are just some of those that an SQA carries out to ensure the quality of the final software.
How Does QA Work?
The QA process takes software developers through several steps that allow them to define the methodologies they will use to ensure quality products. These QA activities favor production processes by helping businesses create resource and equipment schedules that are predictable and easy to plan.
During the QA process, developers go through several steps of planning different methods for assuring high-quality software. These are:
- Project Requirements Review. The QA team will go through the project needs and software specifications to know the functional and non-functional features of the software.
- Writing Test Cases. Based on the requirements of your software development project, the QA Tester prepares test cases for the same.
- Tests Creation. Once the writing of test cases, the QA Team will develop tests in the required areas. It helps in improving your software quality.
- Issues and Software Faults Outline. After the development of the tests, the QA team informs the developers about the issues so that they can make additional adjustments.
- Iteration of Tests. The QA team can repeat the testing until they make all the corrections. They also confirm any other issues found to make run the software smoothly.
Inform about the Bugs and Fixes. The QA team will document the testing process and guarantee the quality improvement of the software development process. They will report the tests performed, the issues generated, the steps to take for correction, and the testing results.
Why Is a Quality Assurance Tester Needed on a Software Development Team?
The QA Tester plays a significant role in developing any software application. In the earlier stages of its development, final users feel inconvenience while using the product.
Therefore, the role of the QA Tester is to improve the development process and avert it from errors or improper functionality.
The QA Tester performs different functions like testing, tuning, and debugging. Mainly, he (or she) focuses on software matching its requirements, solving any error, planning the tests, and analyzing the issues and software defects.
Hence, the need for QA testers for development is unavoidable. They sometimes become developers and use specific tools to check and fix the bugs for quality and error-free software.
What Are the Benefits of Having a QA Tester on Your Team?
A QA tester is an essential part of an Agile workforce and can help your company create processes that avoid future problems with software deliverables development. These professionals bring their experience and knowledge to give your business and the software you produce a competitive advantage. A QA tester can help in the following ways:
- Time-Saving. As process improvements become standardized, you will find that the workflow improves, and your team can produce high-quality software quicker and more confidently.
- Customer experience. The QA tester works to ensure the software released to the consumer provides them with an exceptional experience. It includes eliminating problems and software bugs, as well as also creating a user-friendly interface.
- Customer satisfaction. Customers purchasing software have expectations of what they should see. Quality management systems are the business processes you implement to assure your software meets standards, help your software meet those expectations, and provide customer satisfaction.
- Help drive the product in the long run. As customers discover they can rely on your software product, they see it as a quality investment. It can help encourage purchases for a long time to come.
- Save company money. Your company can produce high-quality software more efficiently while avoiding potential problems to be fixed later. You can also use the resources wisely throughout the entire product life cycle.
- Build the company’s reputation. A company that releases software that customers can rely on regularly will be one that people come to trust. These positive associations with your business will build your company reputation and give all of your software a lift in interest and sales.
- Prevent expensive mistakes. Mistakes that don’t get caught by the SQA team are expensive. If the software directly harms customers, such as insurance software that doesn’t reliably track or protect client information, it can result in punitive action. Stakeholders want to avoid any final software that could cause such lasting problems.
Can Developers Do SQA Testing?
QA Tester has to invest time in testing every function of your software because it is a time-consuming and complicated method. You hire a QA Tester to identify the bugs and fix them effortlessly. They need to perform the task until every function of your software is bug-free.
On the other hand, software developers have to code with no error rather than test their code. Developers could do QA testing, but they don’t hold the QA testers’ expertise in testing knowing all the users’ cases. Also, they can test the product according to the requirements given by the client.
Conclusion
Why is a Quality Assurance tester needed on a software development team? The contribution of a QA tester is necessary and unavoidable in a software development process to ensure excellent software considering all the requirements, and to lessen the defects.
QA testing comes up with an efficient and effective development process making the end product perfect. It also precludes re-work and delays in software development or future breakdown.
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