Quality Assurance

we think Quality Assurance is often misunderstood – not in a “woe-is-me” way, it’s just not quite what people think it is. In this post I’ll aim to provide first-hand insight into some of its key features, as well as introduce the benefits that a robust QA process can deliver.

There’s a common perception that people in QA are out to break things. While that is one part of it, it’s not the aim. The aim is to find things before users get a chance to. I often say “I don’t break things; I just point at the things that are already broken!”.

Attention to detail is therefore a big part of the process, and a lot of organisation is involved too. There are of course many different types of testing: functional, integration, unit, system, automated etc., but it’s usually only in really large institutions that these disciplines will be fully separated. In the majority of cases QA people will need to be adaptable, carrying out whichever type of testing is needed. It’s difficult to have a dedicated, locked-down QA strategy that you use for every project and every client.