Many people believe that quality assurance and software testing are the same things. Though they do have a similar concept, they are not the same things. Now in SDLC, we have software testing services and in the development project, we have a department called quality assurance.
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So, if you want to build a high-quality software application then both QA and software testing have a definitive role to play in deciding the future of the application. So despite having a similar concept and being an important part of the software development process, both software testing and quality assurance have a lot of differences. So let us have a look at what they are.
What is Software testing?
In a product life cycle, software testing is used to examine how the product will work and whether it has any kind of defects. It is a process of analyzing whether the developed product can meet the expectations of the users and the standards of design.
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Software testing is more product-oriented which is helpful in system inspection, quality control, finding bugs, and more. Software testing can also be referred to as a continuous process of validation and verification. It has multiple stages of testing where every test has an individual goal such as finding bugs in code, loopholes in workflow, errors in the functions, and defective programs.
Different kinds of testsare available to find out anomalies in the software and report them to the development team. Anyhow, software testing is of utmost importance for an application before it is launched in the market. It is carried out to ensure that all the functions and features of the software work exactly as they were designed.
What is Quality assurance?
Quality assurance comes under the umbrella of quality management whose main area of focus is to maintain the integrity of a product in terms of its reliability, functionality, durability, and so on. The QA team collects and analyzes the data from every stage of software development to make sure that the product is meeting the quality criteria. They can make minor adjustments or revert the products to their previous stages to eliminate errors and develop a safe product.
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It is the responsibility of the QA teams to fire out ways to resolve the bugs in the code during the development phase. They can also present their ideas to management to imply some kind of methodologies that includes some sort of analysis or checklist that would help the development team prevent the occurrence of bugs in the code. This could help in developing a software application with higher quality standards.
Quality assurance is generally included in the guidelines and scope of work of software development. This helps developers to avoid as many mistakes as possible and see that the developed product meets all the QA parameters in every phase of development including design, development, test, and deployment.
Differences between Software Testing and Quality Assurance
Now that we have got a basic idea of what both concepts are about, let's draw a line between them and talk about the differences that exist between quality assurance and software testing.
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- Quality assurance is used to prevent any mistakes from happening beforehand. Meanwhile, software testing exists to find out if anything is wrong after the product is developed.
- QA is used to make sure that the product meets the standards of design and the expectations of the users. On the other hand, software testing is used to make sure that the developed product is free of any kind of bugs or errors and is secure to use.
- QA is engaged with the entire software development process, it might also be the guiding factor that controls the testing process but the software testing is only associated with the test cases and their implementation.
- QA is a customer-oriented approach as it is used to validate that every feature and component of the software works as per the user’s needs. Meanwhile, software testing is a product-oriented approach that is used to ensure that every aspect of software functions properly.
- QA can include management policies, team building, tools, training, and more aspects that can help achieve its objectives. On the other hand, software testing just includes different kinds of tests that are aimed to validate software for different kinds of usage.
- QA can be conducted at every level of the software development stage including design, development, test, and deployment whereas software testing is only implemented after the product is developed completely to check whether it is ready to be launched in the market.
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Final words
I think the points we discussed above are sufficient to understand the differences between software testing and quality assurance. We already know how important testing concepts are in a software development project. But after reading this article, I hope we came to understand exactly at which point in the journey from ideation to market launch these concepts play a crucial role in making your software a high-quality product.
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