Software testing and
Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance and Software Testing

Quality assurance is critical in software development. Without it, software development is like a house with poor walls – it can stay together but it probably won’t (and you’ll be stressed all the time).

Nowadays commercial software is not going to be successful if there are faults in the usability. These can be anything from the usability of the UI to speed and safety of the software. There are many parts in software testing and all of them have to be taken care of so that the software can work the way it is supposed to.

If one wants to keep the users of the software happy, or let alone get users, quality assurance simply can’t be forgotten. Bad user experience pushes the users away and presents an unprofessional impression of the company behind the software. No one wants that kind of image for his/her company. But hey, good news: it can be avoided with proper quality assurance. A common pitfall in software development is to underestimate the resources of quality assurance and this can easily lead to not meeting the deadlines or just simply into poor quality of the software. It’s not enough to have the best developers, you also need to have the best quality professionals.

Success in quality assurance and software testing is really visible below the line

When planning a software development project, it is imperative to take into account also the different test phases, the guideline being project's complexity. If the goal is to print "Hello, world", performance testing is definitely overkill. VALA Group can manage the whole development project from early design to development and testing, and to go-live and maintenance testing. We also deliver comprehensive quality assurance services and challenging test automation development and ramp up services, often as a complete package tailored for each customer. We provide quality assurance professionals for all your needs and situations.

Software development includes quite a few different aspects of work; resourcing and budget management, coding and ramping up test environments and maintaining of those, following and guiding everyday work and reporting, and often working as a part of the customer organization. VALA Group will provide all of the above, if needed, or the parts that require special skills of QA pros. Especially ramping up and developing and maintaining test automation framework(s) is the core of VALA Group.

Testing is often thought as an investment that does not really produce anything of value. That is most often false - the earlier possible defects are found and fixed, the better the quality is that eventually goes live. Although fixing issues may take time and resources, it is most often worthwhile; There is no software in the universe in which there were no defects during development. Quality assurance never helps to be in the black at the exact time, its value can only be seen in the future. And even then, only by judging the small number of defects in the final product, which is itself a pretty good starting point for every software project.

Too often too little testing, or testing too late, produce perfect hindsight and only then is early testing seen as the best approach. The late fixes and/or changes usually take much more resources, mostly time and money, than they would have taken had they been done earlier. If testing is an integral part of the development process from the start, and all stakeholders take it seriously, can one expect the books not to be in the red.

We focus in true quality assurance professionals

VALA is a forerunner in software testing and quality assurance in Finland. That’s why it’s natural that we have knowledge and experience in all relevant areas of quality assurance. Our professionals have more than ten years of relevant experience in average, so you can rest assured that your software is in good hands.

Our experts are consultants by nature

Our experts bring that kind of knowledge and expertise to our clients that the clients do not yet have and which is rather challenging to acquire. Modern software testing is not just mouse clicking, but rather something that requires comprehensive intelligence and experience. Through various customer projects, we’ve gained an extensive overview of different working methods and -cultures, gathered best practices and learnt to avoid the worst pitfalls. We train our people continuously without forgetting everyone’s personal attributes; we don’t try to fit everyone into the same mould but rather celebrate individual characteristics and strengths.

Our range of services is extensive

We produce turnkey projects, such as building the entire quality assurance or test automation of a software, but we also offer hard core professionals to solve smaller scale issues too. Our other services include various QA and testing POCs (Proof of Concepts) and current state evaluations. Examples of these include: test automation- and test management tool evaluations, software test plan and brief exploratory testing workshops.

Software testing is the only way into building and maintaining excellent software

Software testing is basically very simple. However, handling the whole entirety is surprisingly difficult and requires various types of expertise and methodologies. Below is a summary of the most well-known methods of software testing.

Software testing can be roughly divided into a couple of main areas

Unit testing

As its name says, unit testing tests small parts of code, units. These are by principle the smallest parts of a software that can be tested. The goal is to make sure that these small parts are written correctly. Unit tests are usually automated and created at the same time as the actual development progresses.

Integration testing

The goal of Integration testing is mainly to test how the different parts of the software communicate with each other, in other words, how does the integration between them work.

System testing

System testing on the other hand is about the whole system and its different use cases.

There are many levels of testing

Functional testing

The purpose of functional testing is to ensure that the software works as it’s supposed to and fulfills the set functionality goals. It is usually done from the viewpoint of the end user and executed by using the actual user interface.

Non-functional testing

As the name implies, non-functional testing is about testing the aspects that are not visible functionalities. These can be for example performance, security, tolerance to defects or use of resources.

Regression testing

Regression testing includes the before mentioned levels of testing but is different by its nature. While functional (and non-functional) testing tries to find as many new defects and error situations as possible, regression testing on the other hand makes sure that new changes to the software haven’t broken any working functionalities.

Usability testing

Usability testing examines how well the software works in general – is it easy to use, is it intuitive and logical, are the colors, contrasts and transitions working well, are the loading times decent and so on. Depending on the device and the user group, the requirements for usability can vary a lot but, in all cases, there is a solid theory and good practices behind a good usability.

Acceptance testing

Acceptance testing is usually done by the customer or their representative who checks whether the ready or almost ready product matches the requirements of the pre-determined use cases. Acceptance testing requires good knowledge of the business at hand, the requirements of the customers and the possible regulations and legislation in question.

Exploratory testing

Exploratory testing is less systematic and relies on the expertise and experience of the tester. Usually the focus areas are predetermined, and a log is updated of what have been done and what were the findings. Exploratory testing can be a very efficient way to go through even complex things without having to deal with vast amount of preparations and documentation. Many times, the results can be surprising – during the sessions the testers can evaluate things from multiple perspectives and even unorthodox point of views are present, unlike in more systematical testing.

There are a couple of main aspects in test management

Test planning or creating a test plan is one of the most common tasks for a test specialist. In that plan, the test target, schedules, environments and responsibilities are described. Also, the creation of test data, reporting defects and test report are covered in the plan. Test/development team tasks are listed, including e.g. creating test cases, defect lifecycle and reporting. In addition, debugging responsibilities and future development ideas or process changes can also be included. There are several tools available to manage the tasks and work mentioned above. To integrate all of them fluently, and to communicate to other stakeholders within the organization are part of the everyday bread and butter of a QA consultant.

For more information, contact

Teemu Pesonen

Business Director:
Quality Assurance

teemu.pesonen@valagroup.com
+358 400 513 514

References

MTV3
After a competition, MTV chose VALA as their strategic quality assurance partner in their digital services. MTV was especially pleased with VALA’s values, customer references and genuine interest towards developing MTV’s digital services.

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Solteq
VALA and Solteq started software testing and quality assurance partnership in the year 2016.

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Zalando
Zalando chose VALA as their QA partner to improve their QA and software testing processes.

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MTech
Mtech is a leader in agriculture digitalisation. VALA Group stepped into the project and only after a couple of weeks, agile working methods were integrated into Mtech’s quality assurance.

Read more

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Software testing andQuality Assurance