Getting Ready to Deploy?7 Tests for your QA Checklist

QA seems straight forward…but implementing a comprehensive QA strategy is a complex process. You’re testing:

Major headline failures

Regression bugs

Extreme edge cases

…and everything in between

On top of that, you’re looking to anticipate potential problems before they actually become problems. So, what to do?

To increase your coverage and ensure that your product is bug-free and ready to ship, here are 7 QA tests you should be running.

Unit Testsaka: white box testing, transparent box testing

Unit testing tests the smallest testable segments (“units”) of code, usually as they are written. These tests are normally written by software developers, or in Testing Driving Development (TDD) environments before the code is written.

Unit tests should be implemented regardless of company size or funding cycle. As the company grows, they should implement automated scripts to run unit tests.

An unreliable core product discourages users from becoming long-term customers (and stunt any potential company growth!) so it’s really important to be doing unit testing to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Integration Testingaka: functional testing, black box testing

Integration testing ensures that any new code written compiles smoothly with your existing codebase, application, or feature, and takes place after unit testing. Usually done at the modular level, tests that two separate pieces work together properly.

Automated integration testing should be implemented as your product grows and new features are added alongside existing software. This is essential for Series A levels of funding and beyond, for both B2B and B2C companies.

Acceptance Testingaka: end user testing

User acceptance testing is a form of QA that tests whether an application or feature works in the “real world,” with respect to the end users’ needs and requirements. These tests are executed by the end user or a business representative.

These tests are especially important for mature products, assessing the major uses of your product, and to address issues before they reach production.

Exploratory Testingaka: informal testing

Exploratory or informal testing is non-structured testing to find unexpected issues or problems. This method needs to be carried out by skilled testers and is difficult to automate, mainly because there are often no clear, concrete objectives for these test cases.

Exploratory testing not only discovers how the software works, but creating new test cases to find defects and isolate problems that more formal, automated methods might miss.

Penetration Testingaka: pen testing

Penetration testing tests for security vulnerabilities, and helps develops discover any weaknesses or breaches in their software or application. Penetration tests can be automated or manual, and involves identifying possible weak points and attempting to break in.

Load Testingaka: volume testing, stress testing

Load testing ensures that an application and its infrastructure can handle a large number of users simultaneously. Varying loads are placed on a specified area of the app to simulate users, traffic, etc., to see how it functions.

This becomes important in the later funding stages of your company. For B2B companies, this may be required at seed-funding stage, while B2C may be able to wait to worry about this type of automated testing .Most B2C companies don’t have to worry about load testing until they’re more mature, as they’re not yet likely to encounter traffic that breaks their software.

Dogfoodingaka: eating your own dog food

Dogfooding is the practice of using your own product or app to test and uncover any issues. This not only allows you to see what the UX of their app is like, but also test their application in a real-world situation.

Dogfooding uncovers both big problems, as well as small issues like interface bugs that affect speed and accuracy. Overall, it helps your developers think like the customers who will be using your product, ensuring a better UX.

Designing Testing Schemes to Move FastQA-testing strategies and testing types should be implemented based on company life cycle. Comprehensive testing strategies are essential for satisfying end users and maintaining the quality of your product or app (or individual features). Most importantly, you should continue to evaluate your QA-testing needs, since the scope of your testing strategy will change as you grow.

So what tests should you run?The challenge is figuring out how much QA is needed to meet customer expectations without wasting resources.

Download our whitepaper to learn:

• How to create the perfect testing stack

• How to choose between test coverage options

• What tests you should be running based on your customers, competitors, and funding cycle

Download the Whitepaper

About Rainforest QAThe Rainforest Continuous QA Platform provides on-demand manual QA-as-a-Service so that agile and continuous deployment teams can develop software quickly without compromising quality.

Powered by 50,000 qualified testers, the platform serves as a management tool for writing, running and getting manual QA results is less than 30 minutes so that companies can focus on building quality software, not managing individual testers. Full feature access is available via API to seamless incorporate the platform into your existing development workflow.

Learn more about Rainforest here