Why Is SQA Important?
What we needed to do after creating the app, but before releasing it out to the world, was to test it. Testing and programming should always go hand-in-hand.
We know that QA, or Quality Assurance, is the method of preventing mistakes and defects from occurring in a product. Quality Assurance not only verify the end product, but also manages the entire development process. Software quality assurance, or SQA, need to be involved in almost every step of the software development process. Software is complex, can be changed very quickly and we need more than just inspectors or testers. We need QA Engineers to come up with ways to make sure that software does what it’s supposed to do not just by testing the product they have been given, but by designing new ways to break the software and discover problems early in the development process.
If we want to add new feature, first what is needed is defining a set of acceptance criteria or a formal set of rules for how a feature must work. Other aspects about the feature might get decided along the way, but the absolute necessary part is creating acceptance criteria before developers starts to code. A lot of defects that happen when a product gets released are due to just poor planning and not defining the features very well.
Based on acceptance criteria QA Engineer can create a test case, which is a series of steps to perform, that will attempt to prove that the software is running to given specification. It is important to be very specific and ask lots of clarifying questions at this stage because we can test only what we know.
The test case is almost like a journal of what was done to make sure the software works. We want to check if there is any defects. Defects, or bugs are flaws in the software that must be fixed. If some of the steps in the test case fail, or if the product does not act in a way that we’ve defined, then that defect needs to be fixed. Defects are essentially what always QA engineers and testers lookout for.
Bugs will typically be reported back to the development team and get fixed before new features make it out in the release. The software gets re-tested, and the process continues until all or at least most of these defects have been fixed. When all bugs have been fixed, we’re ready to release.
At this point, QA must be interested in customer feedback to see what didn’t get spotted. Or maybe where customers might be looking for when we’re designing another feature. This feedback loop is important to assuring that the product is meeting the needs and desires of our customers.
The steps in the full development process are: Idea > Design > Code > Test > Release > Feedback.
