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At Integrity we believe in paying attention to the tiniest of details. That’s why QA testing or “Quality Assurance Testing” is an important part of our web application development process. QA testing is a process for reviewing a website or application in all major browsers and devices to ensure they are bug and error free.
It’s important to plan for QA testing when you are budgeting and scheduling for any website or application, as it can be a very time consuming process. If not done correctly or efficiently, it can deplete your hours and end up costing you money.
When creating a budget, we typically plan for about 20% of hours to be spent on QA and the resulting improvements. It may seem like overkill, but this is the most important part of a project. It allows you to perfect your site, which will set it above the competition. Have you ever been unable to complete a form when visiting a site on your phone? Imagine that was your e-commerce site; you would have just lost a sale! This could have been caught and fixed during QA testing.
At Integrity, QA testing doesn't just happen at the end, it is a part of the entire project. We start by assigning a QA Lead at the beginning of a project. That person is responsible for ensuring each page and feature of the site or application looks and functions correctly.
Once a new page or feature has been completed by a developer, it is run by the QA Lead. This testing is typically done in Chrome, as it is the most widely used browser. At the end of a project, after the entire site has been reviewed by the QA lead, and is deemed perfect, then we assign a team to QA test the site in every major browser (the latest versions of IE, Firefox and Safari) and device (Android phones, Android tablets, iPhones and iPads).
When we say our process is thorough, we mean it. We do our best to “break” a new site, checking links, forms, images, hover effects, pagination, headers, 404 pages and more. The team follows a detailed checklist for each project to make sure nothing is left out.
If we can find a bug, we’ve done our job. And at all times, we’re thinking of how users might interact with the site. That’s our end goal after all, making sure we’ve created the best possible user experience for anyone visiting our clients’ sites.
