How PropTech Changed the Real Estate Industry?
Let’s start with the most obvious question – What is PropTech? The name PropTech is an amalgamation of the words “property” and “technology”, and is also commonly referred to […]
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Quality assurance is to make sure a product is safe for general use. Meaning it doesn’t have any bugs or errors that would negatively affect the users’ privacy and their overall satisfaction. QA testing takes place after each stage of the software development life cycle and it’s a process that greatly contributes to the success of the end-product. Now, what if it’s done improperly? There are actually many bad scenarios that poor quality assurance can lead to.
QA engineers and testers are responsible for testing and double-checking product functionalities before its release to the public. Many times we hear a product fails from inadequate testing procedures which is why it’s good to recall the characteristic of a poorly conducted quality assurance process.
We all know that automation makes our lives easier as we get things done faster. But during testing, QA engineers shouldn’t rely on just the automated techniques to scan the product. If they do and devote the entire process to a couple of emulators and simulators then what they can miss is to actually get to know the feature. Without manual, exploratory testing, QA engineers have no understanding of how the feature will be used by users.
User stories often include acceptance criteria, which outline exactly how the new feature or fix should work. However, when the QA team focuses only on the AC list, it’s not good for the product. There may be critical areas left untested just because someone assumed that if the criteria are prepared by developers, nothing else matters. You couldn’t be more wrong:)
Poorly conducted quality assurance is also the one that took ages. QA team members who focus too much on finding bugs that appear only on very bizarre, unusual situations, burn the time. Instead, they should focus on tests on realistic user behavior.
The role of a tester is much more complex than running automated tests and picking holes in everything. The QA team needs to make sure software is well-protected from malicious users and its quality isn’t questionable. Poor quality assurance can lead to many unwanted situations that not only leave a mark on the company’s reputation but also put the users’ data in danger. And even though it’s so important to conduct tests according to certain standards, we don’t have to look far away to see an example of poor quality assurance procedures.
Apple has recently stated they plan to switch from Intel to custom processors. The reason for that is the bad quality assurance of Skylake chips that led to many customers’ complaints about the products. Their former Intel engineer claimed that the plan to shift from Intel to custom silicon is only because of the poor quality control on the Apple side.
QA engineers are the last line of defense in making sure that users have a good experience with the product. The final result of their work is the assurance the product works flawlessly. If we want to earn respect as a company delivering high-quality products, we have to be effective in QA testing.
