Testing should come as a necessary part of each phase of Software Development. Although it is a vital stage of the overall workflow, it can also be a fully independent process.
Because of high expenses, most businesses prefer hiring one in-house specialist for all testing tasks instead of applying a comprehensive QA service. As a result, companies may lose money after the release, as their products won’t be fully debugged.
In this article, we highlight cases when basic software testing isn’t enough. Moreover, we explain why it is better to involve third-party QA teams in your software development cycle.
What Is QA, And Why Is It Vital?
Applying the quality assurance system allows companies to guarantee that their products meet standard requirements. Usually, software development follows a chain of previously planned, systematized, and implemented principles, as quality assurance requires all processes to be documented.
To provide an excellent product, it is critical to incorporate testing into the software development lifecycle. As a rule, businesses create in-house terms and build a system that organizes, and observes the whole process. Moreover, it is especially important to introduce QA at the early stages because such a strategy can significantly reduce the cost of fixing detected bugs.
What’s The Difference Between Software Testing And QA?
Software testing and QA differences are significant. The first service cannot replace the second one, as QA is more comprehensive. Also, both of them have specific features and styles. Let’s distinguish software testing and quality assurance below.
Quality Assurance (QA) is a set of conditions designed to ensure that the software matches all the specifications. It deals with the operation staff styles and ways of development, design analysis, rosters, etc. QA goes through the full product lifecycle and heads the process of software protection.
Software testing is a way of confirming the program’s operation and finding possible bugs. It allows companies to see if the developed product meets the set expectations of terms. It is product-related, time-limited, and refers to the quality control process.
So, we can sum up that it is better to apply both options in your software development process. Only in such a way, you can get a complex vision of the product’s weak points.
Functional VS Non-Functional Software QA Testing
Functional testing is designed to verify whether the functional requirements of the software conform to its real characteristics. The purpose of a non-functional test is to check the suitability of application properties that do not relate to the functionality of the system. Let’s see the difference between these two types.
|
Functional |
Non-functional |
| Performed before non-functional testing. | Performed after functional testing. |
| Based on customer requirements. | The main focus is on customer expectations. |
| Easy to define functional requirements. | Difficult to define the requirements for non-functional tests. |
| Helps to formalize the behavior of the application. | Helps to validate the performance of the application. |
| Carried out to validate software actions. | Done to confirm the performance of the software. |
| Carried out using the functional specification. | Carried out by performance descriptions. |
| Easy to execute by manual testing. | Difficult to perform manually. |
Types of Functional Software Application QA Testing
Why is testing important in software development? The main task of functional testing is to confirm that the software lifecycle has all the functionality required. Depending on the purpose, it can be based on:
- Functional requirements. They help to ensure that all the parts of the developed product work correctly.
- Business processes. This testing is grounded on the parameters of system usage.
These aspects are implemented through the following types and levels:
- Preparing a test plan grounded on functional and business conditions
- Analysis
- Test cases
- Reporting analytics on achievement of quality targets
- Home testing
- Automated testing
- Exploratory testing
- No-code testing
Types of Non-Functional Software Application QA Testing
Non-functional testing is not similar to a functional one, as the main difference is that the features are tested for performance, reliability, usability, and scalability. Its main types are:
- Performance testing — how the software operates under a certain load.
- UX testing — whether the software product is correctly used.
- Security testing — how to protect the software from hacker attacks, unauthorized data access, etc.
- Trust ability testing — how the program works under a long normal anticipated load.
- Localization testing — how the software behaves according to the access region.
Who Should Test The Product?
As we said before, QA and software checking can be used separately, as they are responsible for different types of testing. Missing one of them, your software may have some bugs.
Software testing and quality assurance depend on the number of your products.
If you have only one, then you don’t need to hire an outsourced agency. An in-house specialist will be enough. In addition, if you have minimum requirements for product testing, then you can ask another developer from your team to help with this task. Preferable, this should be the one who works on a separate projects and wasn’t connected with this particular development in any ways.
Nevertheless, if you have multiple products, it’s better to recruit an independent company with full-cycle testing services.
Advantages Of Choosing A Third Party Company
Outsourcing is a great opportunity for businesses to engage an agency or separate employees, who can help deal with challenges for a lower price. Let’s take a look at a few benefits of such a solution.
Benefit №1. It helps reduce expenses. Hiring an outsource software testing team is cheaper than paying full-time specialists. The outsourcing team already includes all the expenses, such as rental of premises, job placement, employee accounting, etc. in the price of their services. Additionally, all the above tasks require not only money but also time.
Benefit №2. There is no need for continuous staff training. Collaborating with an outsourced specialist who already meets all the requirements is the most profitable and time-saving option. Thus, your staff will not be overloaded by additional training and getting new competencies.
Benefit №3. It allows flexible monitoring of the employee’s workload. It’s typical for IT companies to have a cyclical process and ‘floating need’ in staff offices. Sometimes the QA department stays without tasks, waiting for an assembly that could be tested for too long. The advantage of outsourcing is that you can easily control the entire work process without paying for idle time.
Benefit №4. It helps not to overburden employees. When you deal with an external company that takes care of all the challenges, your employees can pay attention to more vital tasks. In such a way, your workers won’t be overstretched and will be able to focus on reaching the long-term goals of the business.
Wrapping up
Software testing and QA are the crucial factors that guarantee the proper result during the whole development cycle. We found out why the company needs an outsourcing test team, and also discovered that QA and regular testing should be used together. Moreover, we uncovered the advantages of collaborating with a third-party company while conducting QA and software checking.
Need a testing team? Get in touch with LITSLINK, as we are always ready to provide you with excellent services.
