Quality assurance as a common term can be described as the permanent procuring of the product’s quality. Whatever the sphere we are working at, from food-producing to the creation of sophisticated software, QA is a vital part of any working process from the product’s first to the last stages.
If we talk about a digital world, in particular, quality assurance can be described as a procedure of procuring digital product’s quality, concerning all the aspects and sides of its development and operation.
What is the purpose of quality assurance?
As it is obvious from the definition, quality assurance is used to look after the product’s accordance with the particular criteria. These criteria, on their side, are taken from the product’s documentation, and requirements, created even before the work has started.
It is worth noticing that documentation is also inspected on the subject of logical, technical, or any other mistakes to prevent any flaws occurring at the beginning and crush the entire production process. This specific process is called documentation testing and is considered as the first quality assurance stage.
What do QA engineers do?
Examination of the product’s quality is vital for the regular work of any digital product; that’s why it is under the responsibility of a unique team called QA engineers. They have an extensive list of procedures necessary to procure the product from any other mistakes or system mistakes.
- Testing of the documentation of all kinds. There must be no flaws in logical, technical, and resource aspects, so the product is protected even before its existence.
- Testing of the application on each stage of its development. QA team should look after every part of the process and test any functionality added, as the problems may occur at any time.
- Maintenance of the product’s quality after its release. Even when the product is already in use, QA engineers should periodically inspect the system, as new bags may appear after the end-users.
How do QA and quality control differ?
Those who are not engaged in IT may often confuse the process of QA with the procedure of QC.
So, the main difference between them is that quality assurance is responsible for procuring the quality from the very beginning, from the stage of the plan or even idea. From this stage, it goes further until the product’s release.
Quality control, on the other hand, is dedicated to the final quality of the product; it checks the result of the entire work. It is the full final procuring that has to find all the mistakes neglected during the developing process.