Before getting into the essence of software quality assurance testing benefits , here are some questions for you. 

1. How do you feel when you are playing a game and your mobile gets stuck and you are unable to proceed further?
2. Do you trust a payment gateway or an application that regularly troubles you while purchasing a product?
3. Do you stick around a website or mobile app that takes more time to load?
4. How do you feel if a software application is not compatible with your mobile devices? 
5. Do you prefer an application with a cluttered interface that consumes more space on your device?

As a user, you will be frustrated, annoyed, and uninstall that application, right! It is exactly with most applications that lack or neglect software QA testing. Even, it comes true with your application as well.  

In the software development life cycle (SDLC), product development, testing, and Quality Assurance (QA) are integral parts and have their significance.

Despite the application development complexity, software quality assurance (QA) testing is necessary to ensure the product is bug-free and runs effectively under various conditions. However, due to a lack of skilled resources and budgets, hiring and retaining QA engineers and experts have become a growing challenge for most SMEs. 

What is software QA testing?

Primarily, QA testing investigates and reveals inconsistencies, errors, and redundancies in newly developed products. Furthermore, it ensures your product complies with market trends and delivers optimal performance under various scenarios.

On the other hand, software quality assurance testing is an invaluable asset in your legacy application modernization journey. As the legacy system modernization involves auditing and revamping the old code, QA testing allows you to check the compatibility between old and new software codes — further helps in mitigating lags. 

Software Quality Assurance Testing Strategies: 4 ways to do QA testing

Soon after you develop the product or during the development process, software application testing is crucial to ensure the product is efficient and delivers optimal performance. And, the success of your project relies on the software testing methodology you choose. 

Let’s have a look at the 4 different types of software QA testing strategies.

1. Waterfall methodology:

The Waterfall software testing strategy is the earliest software product testing model used in SDLC. This method illustrates that software testing happens in a linear sequential flow — means the process has more dependencies, and you have to wait until you get the result from the previous phase. 

In this model, first, the whole project is documented and planned. Then, a team of QA testers conducts small steps in sequential order. You can not skip any phase and do a random test.

Despite its simplicity in execution, the waterfall software quality assurance testing takes more time to test and make changes accordingly.

2. Agile software testing methodology:

A software testing practice that follows the agile software development principles is called Agile software testing methodology. Unlike the Waterfall testing practice, the Agile methodology is flexible and continuous.

In this approach, the QA team need not wait until the previous phase is complete. Instead, they work simultaneously with the software development teams to ensure your product has little to no bugs.

The scrum working model is also a part of agile software app testing based on a sequence of short iterations called sprints. In the Agile software application testing approach, every sprint ends with a review meeting consisting of progress and future sprint plans.

3. Verification and Validation Methodology (V-model):

Any software product development is divided into multiple stages to make the development process easy and effective. 

In the Verification and Validation software quality assurance testing approach, both development and testing happen in parallel.

As soon as a particular stage of development finishes, the software application QA testing team validates that code and suggests necessary modifications. Comparatively, V-model allows the development team to make modifications at the early stages and saves time & cost. 

4. Incremental testing

After unit testing, developers perform integration testing to verify interfaces and interactions between modules. Incremental testing is one of the best ways to test the integration of modules. In incremental testing, developers use various drivers to uncover the defects. 

The incremental QA testing strategy consists of several iterations and adds value to your product at every iteration as a new feature. This process mainly consists of three stages: design & development, testing, and final implementation. Flexibility is the prime benefit of the Incremental testing strategy.

Top 6 benefits of software QA testing you should know in 2022

Quality Assurance is one of the most important aspects of custom application development. As a business owner, you want your application to work efficiently, adaptable, responsive, and bug-free regardless of the scenarios. 

Any technical glitches in your application can lead to a loss of credibility and hurt customer experience. Implementing software quality assurance testing strategies throughout the development life cycle brings you numerous benefits.

Let’s look at the top 6 benefits of software QA testing. 

1. QA testing saves cost
2. Software QA testing brings security
3. QA testing brings better user experience
4. QA testing improves profits
5. Software QA testing increases confidence
6. Software testing prevents breakdowns

1. Software testing saves cost:

Software development consists of different stages and needs a timely testing process to avoid bugs and improve product quality. The longer a bug goes undetected, the more difficult and expensive it is to fix it. 

By employing modern software product QA testing strategies throughout the development process can help you find and resolve errors at the earliest. It further helps in gaining a competitive advantage over other applications with errors.  

Therefore, implementing software QA testing strategies, finding, and resolving errors from the beginning could save you millions of dollars. 

2. QA brings security:

Application security is incredibly important these days. If your application deals with customer’s personal and sensitive data, you have to pay more attention than others. Any leaks in data would cost you more than you expected. The software quality assurance testing allows you to probe every phase of the development process and check the vulnerabilities. 

Therefore, you can make your product more secure from hackers and intruders. You would get a trustworthy product, security to the user’s personal information, and risk-free access.

By conducting a series of safety and performance tests, you can check whether the application is on par with modern security protocols or not. If you find any security gaps, you can fix them immediately before it turns out to be a disastrous attempt.

3. Better user experience:

How do you feel when a software glitch occurs while navigating across a website or mobile application? Certainly, it hurts your experience and annoys you. Isn’t it?
As the need for improved UX is growing enormously in recent times, you must pay attention while developing and testing your product. A well-tested software product ensures a better user experience and makes their navigation hassle-free. 

4. Improved profits:

The more customers you have, the more profit you can gain. With software product quality testing, you can fix errors immediately and improve your product quality further.

If your visitors experience no glitches and operational difficulties, they are more likely to engage and buy your product or service. Which, in turn, drives more sales and profits than your competitors. 

5. Testing increases confidence:

Releasing a product without enough testing will backfire and ruin your reputation. On the other hand, testing your software product at every phase improves quality and confidence.

The software quality assurance testing ensures your product is error-free and in compliance with user requirements. This further helps in forging long-term relationships. 

6. QA prevents breakdowns:

Imagine you are working on a software application and encounter a sudden breakdown. How do you feel about it? It will annoy you, right!
It’s the same scenario with your erroneous application as well. You can not predict errors while working on it. The software app testing allows you to check its performance under various loads, devices, and architectures to avoid unforeseen breakdowns. 

During the development process, your software product will undergo the required functional and non-functional testing methods. They help you assess your product’s operational efficiency, productivity, security, and user experience it delivers.     

Software failures: Why is software testing important?

1. When it goes about IT failures, no one is safe. Amazon’s AWS, which is considered to be one of the most reliable hosting services, experienced a serious outage in the eastern coast of the U.S in 2017.

2. Two years ago a well-known code collaboration platform GitLab experienced a severe data loss which appeared to be one of the major outages in the IT world.

3. A vulnerability in Google+ exposed the private information of nearly 500,000 people using the social network between 2015 and March 2018. The software glitch allowed outside developers to see the name, email address, employment status, gender, and age of the network’s users.

4. Facebook and Ola are other big players in the news for its huge data leak a few years ago.

Conclusion:

Above are just a few examples or instances of software failure. But, history knows more examples that caused hefty damages. Therefore, implementing the right software testing strategy is the need of the hour for all businesses of all sizes.

Application QA testing is a process of checking whether a product is error-free or not. It is an important and significant part of the software development process that can contribute to your organization’s success. It can be of great use when it is done from scratch to enhance your application’s performance and meet evolving needs.  

If you are struggling to build a tech team of testing/ QA engineers, Amzur can help you with Quality Assurance and Testing Services. We have a team of qualified software QA engineers and have been offering these services for the past decade in Tampa, Florida, and the USA. 

Our QA experts collaborate with your internal development team right from strategy building, conduct various testing methods to ensure your product is bug-free, and add value to your product. We provide our software QA testing and QC services during and post-development. Amzur’s extended tech development teams are equipped with skills and expertise in developing futuristic solutions that evolve with business needs.