Why Every Project Needs a Strong Quality Assurance Process

The same principle applies to digital products. Integrating QA into the development process ensures high quality, prevents major issues, and ensures a smooth user experience. Simply put, QA is the last line of defense before a product reaches its users.

Skipping QA comes with significant risks, including financial loss and a poor user experience, which can harm both the company developing the product and the client. On top of that, a lack of QA can damage a company’s reputation, lead to user loss, and trigger negative feedback. Even the most successful and influential companies suffer the consequences of poor QA, proving just how high the stakes can be.

The value of QA

Integrating QA early in the development process brings a lot of perks: 

1. Saves time and money: Early QA integration helps catch mistakes fast, making them easier and cheaper to fix
2. Reduces risks of defects: Spotting issues early means fewer problems later on in development or production
3. Prevents bugs from reaching end users: By addressing issues before release, QA ensures users encounter a smooth experience
4. Ensures stable, working software: QA helps the product run as expected and is free from critical issues
5. Avoids low-quality app releases: QA stops low-quality products from launching, reducing the risk of negative user feedback

It also improves user experience by preventing crashes, fixing non-working features, enhancing usability and app intuitiveness, and ensuring smooth performance and accessibility. All of these contribute to a stable, user-friendly product that users will enjoy.

If you already have a product but didn’t introduce QA from the beginning, let me tell you, it’s never too late to start. The approach will vary depending on the product's complexity, but the key is to tailor the plan to the client's needs. This starts with identifying pain points, reviewing current processes, and creating a step-by-step plan to integrate QA, prioritizing the most critical issues first. This helps clients and users see the value of QA right away.

How does QA help reduce long-term costs?

QA helps cut costs in the long run by ensuring that your product is stable and works as intended. Addressing issues early on, during the requirement reviews or initial testing stages, is much cheaper than fixing bugs in the later stages. 

Now, you might be wondering how exactly QA helps reduce costs, so let’s break it down: 

• Saving time and resources: Catching bugs during early testing means you don’t need to spend additional time and resources after release to fix them. Post-release fixes involve identifying the root cause, fixing the issue, and redeploying – all of which require additional time and effort.
• Preventing damage to customer satisfaction: Negative user experiences can lead to lost customers, which can be hard to recover. A product that works well from the start keeps customers happy and loyal.
• Avoiding legal costs: Think about what happens when big issues arise, like the Windows 10 update that deleted personal data, which resulted in lawsuits and costly legal fees. A strong QA process could have prevented this by catching potential problems before release.
• Minimizing downtime: In industries where downtime is costly, having a proper QA process before rolling out new features can help prevent pricey operational disruptions, saving both time and money.

Clearing up the confusion

QA is often overlooked, but skipping it can mean serious risks and lost potential. Here are the most common misconceptions:

• QA slows down development: Many believe that QA creates bottlenecks by prioritizing bug fixes over new features. What they don’t realize is that QA isn’t just about fixing bugs; it also improves the UX/UI. Poor UX can harm a company’s reputation, whether it’s a startup or a larger business. Startups, for example, often focus on delivering an MVP and gathering user feedback as quickly as possible. But, without a strong QA process, the MVP may struggle to survive beyond its initial phase. This is why it’s important to invest in QA from the start.

• Anyone can do QA: There’s a common assumption that developers should test their own code, which is partly true, but QA goes far beyond just clicking around an app. It starts early by reviewing requirements before development even begins, catching potential issues before they become costly mistakes. There are situations where a client hasn’t been properly introduced to QA, which is why they don’t see its value. On the other hand, agencies often skip offering QA to achieve lower estimates to win projects, reinforcing the idea that it’s unnecessary. However, once a client experiences thorough testing, they realize its importance. Many even refuse to build projects without it.

• QA guarantees a bug-free app: While QA ensures a product meets high-quality standards, no digital product can be 100% bug-free. Complex systems have countless variables, and while QA catches major issues, both manual and automated testing have their limitations. The goal is to minimize risk and deliver the best possible user experience.

Quality isn’t just a digital concern; it’s something customers expect in every industry. If you don’t deliver, they’ll just go somewhere else. However, despite this, QA often gets overlooked, especially when deadlines are tight. The problem? These short-term savings often lead to long-term losses. And the risks? Poor user experience, critical bugs slipping through to end users, lost revenue, increased costs from post-release fixes, and even long-term damage to your company’s reputation.

QA as a smart investment

Whether you're a startup or an established company, making it in today’s highly competitive market takes more than just innovation – it requires quality. If you don’t have a smooth UX, your reputation could take a hit, leading to financial losses and a weakened brand. Investing in QA is really investing in your business’s future.

It also plays a crucial role in security. There’s a specialized branch of quality assurance dedicated to security testing, ensuring vulnerabilities are caught and addressed before they become serious threats. This way, you would stay compliant with security standards and regulations, which is crucial for protecting sensitive data and building user trust. So, if you’re handling very sensitive user data, make sure that it’s adequately protected.

How to implement it effectively?

The approach to QA varies depending on the size of your business. Startups typically focus on getting to market quickly with an MVP, prioritizing speed over extensive testing, while mid-sized companies have more resources to invest in stability, ensuring their product is polished and reliable.

Regardless of the size of your business, the most important thing is to start testing as early as possible. Instead of waiting for a feature to be built, reviewing requirements upfront will help catch potential issues early. Automation also plays a key role here – implementing tests where they add value, such as for regression testing, can significantly speed up your development process. When developers write unit tests, they can catch mistakes before the code even reaches the QA team, while automated end-to-end tests help reduce repetitive manual work. 

Think about fast feedback loops as well; testing small chunks of work instead of waiting for large feature sets enables quicker fixes, lowering costs, and minimizing delays.

Ready to put quality first?

If you’re just starting to prioritize QA, your first step is to create a solid strategy. Develop a clear plan, identify critical areas, and take small, incremental steps to build a strong QA process.

Remember, small wins lead to long-term success. A well-executed QA strategy ensures smoother development, reduces costly post-release fixes, and sets your business up for sustainable growth.

If you’re not sure how or where to start, get in touch.