Is it really important to get services like Software Testing and Quality Assurance in the software industry?
The answer is certainly ‘YES’!
Do you know? On average, about 15-50 errors occur per 1000 lines of code.
Software Testing and Quality Assurance can help you ensure your software or application is 99.9% bug-free.
Errors became a part of our daily lives. Errors may occur in our thoughts, actions and also in the products we make.
Likewise in software programming, the number of errors that could occur for every KLoC (1000 lines of code) is more thus making the product defective and useless.
But we hate to incur expenses due to the occurrence of these errors. ‘To err is human’ but we say ‘To rectify/prevent is Testing/QA’.
QUALITY ASSURANCE (QA) AND SOFTWARE TESTING? – WHY DO WE NEED THEM?
No matter how advanced our software development process gets, we simply can’t ignore the increasing importance of QA and Software Testing. A developer tests whether an application is performing properly with the help of basic test cases. Whereas a tester tests the application as an actual end user and pushes the application to its limits to find bugs and to report it to the development team.
QUALITY ASSURANCE (QA) :
Quality is a complex word to understand.
But we can put it this way for better understanding.
‘Quality’ is an attribute which acts as a measure to find whether a product or service conforms to requirements. In other words, Quality means ensuring the products or services which are released for end users are free from defects, errors or any substantial variants.
‘Assurance’ is a positive declaration given by the management of the organization on a product. In other words, Assurance is a testimony stating that the software will work without any glitches and as per the expectations of the client.
QUALITY ASSURANCE (‘QA TESTING’):
It refers to all those planned activities which primarily focuses on improving methodologies or processes to provide the best quality products or services to the client, with respect to functionality, design, durability & reliability of the product.
QA testing gives confidence to the client through a guarantee that the product will work the way it is meant to be.
In other words, Quality Assurance is a systematic process of managing the quality of the product so as to meet the expectations of the client.
SOFTWARE TESTING:
When an application is programmed to perform a set of functions, It is expected to work in the same way. In addition to the outcome of such functions, the quality also needs a software tester to validate it before the user gets to use the software.
Software testing ensures that the application works without any functional errors. Most of the time when an application is running, the user gets off due to these errors and faults that the software carries along.
Software testers test the applications as a user to ensure it is user-friendly. Software testing is an internal process.
Testing teams conduct various examinations to identify all the technical and functional errors so as to make sure that the application is error free.
Firstly, it is mandatory to implement Software testing in the early stages of software development. Because the software bugs could be expensive and dangerous.
TYPES OF SOFTWARE TESTING:
1. Manual testing
2. Automation testing
Manual testing as the name itself says humans test the software. It requires manpower to observe the error and is user-friendly. It is best to use for minor changes in the software. Testing methods like Exploratory testing, ad-hoc testing, usability testing are the areas where manual testing is put in the best use.
On the other hand, Automation testing is an advanced level of testing where the system does the work. In automation testing, the testing tools, along with testing software, and scripts will run those test cases. In the case of Regression testing, Load testing, Performance testing, and Repeated execution automation testing are put to best use.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOFTWARE TESTING AND QUALITY ASSURANCE:
Both Quality Assurance Engineer and Software Tester aims to make software Error free. Let us see how these terms differ in a tabular form.
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- PARTICULARS
- QUALITY ASSURANCE
- SOFTWARE TESTING
MEANING
All those activities that help to ensure the software conform to the specifications of the client constitute Quality Assurance (QA).
A process of exploring a system to find and also to report defects in software.
AIM
The aim of Quality Assurance is ‘To Verify The Quality’
Whereas the aim of Software Testing is ‘To Validate The Quality’.
ORIENTATION
It is Process-Oriented as it focuses on improving processes used to create deliverable works.
It is Product-Oriented as it involves checking the quality of the product.
TYPE OF ACTIVITY
It is a Proactive / Preventive activity.
It is a Reactive / Corrective activity.
FOCUS
The primary focus is on Quality Control and assuring the quality of software.
Main focus is on the Actual testing, Inspecting and finding bugs in the system.
TEAMS INVOLVED
The Whole Project team.
Testers and testing teams
WHAT THEY DO
Manages software products and product life cycles
Finds and reports bugs.
IN SIMPLE TERMS
QA helps to make sure they do the right things.
Software Testing evaluates the actual results of the things done.
Conclusion:
QA focuses on improving the processes to deliver Quality Products to the customer while the Software Testing focuses on ensuring the quality of a product or service so that the software becomes better.
So finally we can say that both Quality Assurance (QA) and software testing go hand-in-hand and play a major role in software development and thus making a quality/bug-free product.