Software Testing Trends in 2022: The Rise of Managed QA Services

Enterprise Solutions

Posted on 18 Dec 2019 5 min read Share On:

The process of Quality Assurance or managed QA services, is a way of preventing mistakes and defects in various areas like in manufactured products, offered services or engineered software. This goes side-by-side with the issues that come up when delivering products or services to customers and ISO 9000 defines it as “part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled.”

In the world of technology, terms “quality assurance” and “quality control” are more often than not used interchangeably which refers to ways that ensures the quality of a service or product provided to the customer or client.

As an example, the term “assurance” is often used as follows: Implementation of inspection and structured testing as a measure of quality assurance in a television set software project at Philips Semiconductors is described.

On the other hand, the term “control”, is used to describe the fifth phase of the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC) model. DMAIC is a data-driven quality strategy and standardized practice which is used to improve processes.

Broader understanding of Managed QA Services and Testing

Quality Assurance constitutes of administrative and procedural activities which are laid in effect in a quality system so that requirements and end-goals for a product, service or activity shall be achieved. It can be termed as a systematic measurement, comparison with a standard, scrutiny of processes and an attached feedback loop that confers error prevention.

There are two principles of Quality assurance:

“Fit for purpose” (the product should be suitable for the intended purpose)
“Right first time” (mistakes should be eliminated).

The process of QA includes handling of the quality of raw materials or even assemblies in large products and components, services related to production, and management, production and inspection processes. The above stated two principles also manifest before the background of developing a novel technical product: The task of engineering is to make it work once, while the task of quality assurance in managed QA services is to make it work all the time.

Historically, establishing what suitable product or service quality means has been an excruciating process, which is determined in many ways, from the subjective user-based approach that contains “the different weights that individuals normally attach to quality characteristics,” to the value-based approach which searches for consumers linking quality to price and making overall conclusions of quality based on such a relationship.

Various approaches to testing

Static, dynamic and passive testing

You will find multiple approaches available in software testing. Forms of reviews, walkthroughs, or inspections are referred to as static testing, whereas executing programmed code with a given set of test cases is referred to as dynamic testing.

Static testing:- This type of testing is deducible and inferred, the same as proofreading. Also when programming tools/text editors check source code structure or compilers, they check syntax and data flow as static program analysis.
Dynamic testing:– This testing is conducted when the program itself is run. It may start before the program is entirely finished so as to test certain sections of code and are then applied to distinct functions or modules. Certain peculiar techniques for these are either by using stubs/drivers or execution from a debugger ecosystem.
Passive testing:- This process means verifying the system behavior sans any interaction with the software product. As opposed to active testing, testers don’t provide any test data but search for system logs and traces. They dig for patterns and specific behavior before implementing certain decisions. This pertains to offline runtime verification and log analysis.

Component interface testing

Component interface testing is a byproduct of black-box testing, which focuses on the data values beyond the related actions of a subsystem component. The practice of component interface testing can be put to work to analyze the handling of data which is bridged between various units, or subsystem components, beyond full integration testing at the intersection of those units.

Visual testing

The entire purpose of visual testing is to aid developers with the ability to investigate what was happening at the time when software failure occurred by the data in such a way that the developer can quickly find the information he requires, subsequently letting him present the information clearly.

At the very heart of visual testing is the idea that highlights a problem to someone, rather than just putting it plainly out on the table. This method greatly increases clarity and understanding. Hence, Visual Testing requires the recording of the entire test process, right from accumulating each and every aspect that occurs on the test system in video format.

The output videos are amplified by real-time tester input through picture-in-a-picture webcam and audio narrative from the microphones.

Conclusion

The process of software testing is, at its very core, an inquiry being carried out which gives concerned parties the data about the quality of the software product or service that they intend to buy under test. It can also provide an objective, independent view of the software allowing the business to appreciate and understand the risks of software implementation. Test techniques include the process of conducting a program or application with the intent of searching for software bugs and then verifying that the software product is fit for use.