Website QA

The Website QA Lessons We Learned in 2018

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My company was awarded a record number of website QA projects in 2018. I recently called a meeting of all of our QA Managers for the purpose of sharing what we had learned after conducting so many test plans for the new and existing clients. Here’s a recap of what I heard from the team. Use this information to help guide your next website QA project.

Dig Deeper into Website QA Requirements – Every Time!

Defining requirements upfront has been a key tenet of TESTCo’s software testing since we started in 2002 It’s no different for website testing. “Just test it” just doesn’t turn out very well.

Deeply understanding the client’s needs about their website leads us to design the right test plan – how much effort do we place on functional testing versus feature-based testing for example. Or, if the site has been updated, should we consider regression testing?

In 2018 we were reminded, time after time, how important it is to know the client’s target audience well. If we know who will be using the website we can design the correct test coverage. Knowing the devices and browsers used by most of the website visitors is mandatory, but so is demographic and lifestyle characteristics. Of the client’s audience we like to know how techie they are, what countries do they reside in? Knowing age and gender of the users is also useful to us when designing an effective test strategy.

There’s a dollar and cents rationale for designing the test coverage to match the user profile. It seldom makes economic sense to invest resources testing on a device used by, say, 1% of your website’s visitors. There are too many devices, operating systems, and browser versions to test them all. Therefore we communicate with the client to define upfront the scope of the test coverage.

Set the Website QA Bar for Customer-Found Defects

Not all defects are considered equally unacceptable by the client. We have learned over the years, and it was reinforced in 2018, to help the client define for us what type of defects are the most important to them and to their users. We ask two simple questions about Customer Found Defects (CFP):

  • “What type of defects are you okay having in your website?”
  • “What type of defects are you not willing to have in your website?”

For example, a button that doesn’t resize correctly but is still readable might be acceptable to some clients as long as the button functions properly. For other clients, the button must resize and function. Our testing finds both defects, but, we will report them differently. In the former case the resizing defect will be classified as Low Priority. In the later example, the defect will receive a High Priority status.

Because writing test plans for UI testing is very time-intensive, we prefer to use checklists. Test plans are always written for features, function and regression testing.

A Website Testing Checklist for You


Website QA Common Sense?

At the end of my meeting with the QA Managers, I said something along these line, “Guys, this is good stuff, but it’s just plain common sense. Software Testing 101. Why are you telling me that identifying requirements is the biggest lesson of 2018?”

Here’s what they told me. “Jeff, it’s because our clients’ internal QA teams don’t do it well and neither do the other website QA companies they’ve tried. The testing starts to go off the rails immediately because the goals and requirements aren’t clearly set first.”

Enough said. Have a website testing project coming up? I’d welcome the opportunity to talk to you about it. Just request a call back by using for blue and green button on this page.

Mobile App Testing

The Mobile App Testing Lessons Learned in 2018

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The market for mobile applications is continually shifting. Failure to get it right, the first time, and keep it right, results in pretty severe consequences. In 2018, TESTCo ran tens of thousands of tests on our clients’ mobile applications. Here’s what we learned. Plus, I’ve included a link to our Mobile App Testing Checklist.

Lesson #1 – Quality Matters in Reviews

The quality of your mobile app will directly influence your app’s ratings and reviews. Users definitely use the ratings and reviews to determine if they should download and use your app. Poor ratings and reviews, especially regarding quality, will cause users to avoid your mobile app.

Improving ratings and reviews, especially pointing out improvements in your mobile app, will cause users to give your app a try. Ratings matter and the quality (of lack thereof) have a big impact on the quality and quantity of your reviews.

Lesson #2 – Choose Your Test Devices and Browsers Carefully

There is no single reference page for determining which devices, operating systems and browsers have the most market penetration. Nobody really knows how many people are actually using any particular flavor of mobile device or operating system. You can’t test every one so how will you know which to test and which to avoid? If you test the wrong group of devices and browsers, you’ll have defects.

Lesson #3 – Don’t Stop! Keep Going! But Not Too Much!

The mobile app market is moving quickly and still gaining steam. Without a real and almost daily need to use your mobile app, users will quickly forget about your value proposition and move on to another offering or app.

If you refresh you mobile app, your users will fall in love with you all over again. Except! Not too often. Too many upgrades and your mobile app users will avoid your updates and miss your new value propositions/features or become confused and delete your app because it appears buggy.

The Preventable Reason Mobile Apps Fail

Mobile apps are almost a strict business requirement – like a web page for a business but harder and more expensive to maintain. They also allow you and your business value proposition to sit, literally, in the pocket of your customers! Get it right and your cash register will ring. Miss a few steps or deliver poor quality and they’ll slide right by and go to your competitor.

Give your innovation a chance to succeed. The #1 reason that mobile apps fail is poor testing. We can help you do it right the first time.