Distinguishing Between Quality Assurance and Software Testing

Are Software Testers also QA engineers? 

One of the most common misconceptions I often hear is people assuming that all software testers are quality assurance engineers. In society today, these two terms have become interchangeable, but they are two different concepts. 

To ensure that people are not misled, there is a need to showcase the distinction between these terms. 

Sure, all QA engineers are software testers. However, not all software testers are quality assurance engineers. 

As their name implies, the primary work of software testers focuses on testing activity, which is a phrase in the software development life cycle. So, software testers are focused on testing the application and reporting bugs. 

For QA engineers, their work goes beyond testing and reporting bugs. They are also involved in the overall software development life cycle process, ensuring quality. To do this, they review requirements and meet with developers to ensure the correct methods are in place to deliver high-quality software. 

Even after the testing activities, they also work with end users and technical support engineers to get feedback on the product. They are the gatekeepers of the products' quality as they carry out and perform different functions. 

The primary objective of software testing is to uncover bugs. At the same time, quality assurance aims to maintain the quality of the products and the process leading to delivering such products. Quality assurance is encompassing, while software testing is a part or specific function of quality assurance. 

QA engineering and software testing in application 

Let me illustrate the difference between QA engineering and software testing with an example of what we will likely do Moniepoint Group . 

Let's say we are having a product demo for Moniepoint Group Inc business app and are at the first stage of the product's life cycle. We are trying to flesh out the requirements for the product. At this stage of the development, my job as a QA engineer is to think from an end user's perspective, foresee challenges that might occur based on the decisions being taken, and provide my input. 

Software testers get The Build or The Demo app to test after the application has been built. While testing, they might encounter some issues or bugs. They have to ensure that these issues are fixed and modified. 

Next, the software will be deployed for production. Then, the end-user or several users begin to use the application and give feedback based on their experience. Here, I have another duty to perform as a QA engineer, as I need to take feedback back to the team. We analyze what we missed or needed to add based on the feedback. This analysis involves identifying what we missed during requirement gathering and putting processes in place to ensure we capture such before subsequent releases are made

So, there are three stages to a software development lifecycle.; The pre-development, development, and post-development stage. A tester is mainly involved in the development stage, while a QA engineer is involved in all stages. 

Measuring effectiveness as a software tester and QA engineer 

It would be unwise to keep working or carrying out tasks without metrics to measure success and effectiveness. As a software tester, you can measure effectiveness first by checking the effectiveness of your test cases i.e the number of scenarios covered in your test cases (test coverage) and then the number of critical bugs discovered while testing.

QA engineers can measure effectiveness by the overall adoption and acceptance of products. If you release a product to the market and there are many issues or customers are not using them for any reason, you've not done your job correctly as a QA engineer. 

Potential Quality Assurance challenges that may arise 

As a QA engineer, thinking that you can do work without encountering issues and challenges would be unrealistic. Facing difficulties is one thing, but overcoming them is the most crucial aspect of getting the job done. 

As QA engineers, we sometimes encounter difficulties anticipating the user's needs. You're building any application because you want it to serve as a solution to a need. So, you must ensure that whatever software or product you launch into the market solves the user's needs.

Therefore, there is a need to carry out extensive market research. It helps you to determine the exact pain point of your customers so that you can build a solution that meets their challenges. You can do your market research by giving users questionnaires to fill out or looking at what your competitors are doing. You can also check how others have done it in the past. It is important to note that no ideas are original. So, look at how others have done it and refine it. 

Another challenge we face as QA engineers are anticipating potential engineering flaws. For example, we are trying to implement a product, and the developers say they think the best approach to implementing the product will be to use a third-party application. 

Using the third-party application will sacrifice performance, but we'll ship the products faster. However, if we build the product in-house, we have control over everything, but it will take us more time. So, although we are building the product in-house, we didn't anticipate specific challenges we will encounter along the way because we are doing it for the first time. 

It could be that we didn't think that if we did it this way and a certain number of users start using this system, it would crash. Trying to anticipate issues that might arise after building an application can be challenging. But as QA engineers, we must anticipate these challenges very well.

From experience, extensive research helps in overcoming this issue. You can view and weigh all possible scenarios through extensive research before deciding.

Conclusion 

In conclusion, everyone should know the difference between quality assurance and software testing before pursuing a career in these fields. Sadly, both terms are now intertwined in the industry today. 

As a software tester, you should eventually strive to become a quality assurance engineer. In addition, it is also best to approach software testing from a quality assurance perspective. 

To be successful as a QA Engineer, you need to be able to function in multiple capacities, such as wearing the hat of a product manager, a software engineer, or a tester and also an understanding of how users will interact with the product.