Why QA Experts Are Essential

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Posted by Brian Borg

Often start-ups or budget constrained organizations try to save money using staff, friends or relatives for QA testing.  This can be a useful first pass, and may uncover obvious problems, but it is not a systematic approach and may only uncover the tip of the iceberg.  We find businesses assuming that their developers can find the bugs as the designers of the code.  For the same reason that even the most sophisticated writer needs an editor, the best developers understand that they need testers.  Developers build. Testers break, these are two very different activities and mindsets.   When testers are testing this allows the developers to do what they do best -- creating code.  By employing a professional testing team of QA experts like OnPath, you will uncover problems before your customers do. This ensures your users remain loyal, and your credibility is protected.

Mitigating Risk

Ultimately, Quality Assurance is about assuring quality and mitigating risk.  As a third party, highly trained resource that thoroughly tests your application and its functionality, OnPath gives you both peace-of-mind and objectivity. This removes the potential bias your internal team may unknowingly experience.  Without professional testers, your software developers could end up with amateurs who test their applications using the typical path (often referred to as the happy path) that users should take. Launching software without methodical and thorough testing will reveal all too quickly just how often users don’t follow the happy path in the real world.

You’ve done the hard part -- research and development -- all the steps you need to get your application ready for market.  Without systematic testing from OnPath, you could be putting your whole launch at risk.  

Don't Settle For Less Than QA Experts

Many startups we speak with are convinced they cannot afford QA engineers, regardless of our rates. They are using anyone else available to meet their testing needs, whether it’s their developers, their users, or even their CEO/CTO to test their software. Let’s look at the matrix below to see exactly the results of this decision:

QA grid - QA experts

The main takeaways are simple:

  • Anyone that’s not an experienced QA engineer will take more time and be less thorough in their testing, resulting in more bugs slipping into production.
  • Bug reports by non-testers tend to be vague and incomplete, demanding more time from your developers to confirm and reproduce.
  • In short, using non-professional QA resources to test your app may save you money in the short term but will negatively impact development time, stable releases, and opportunity costs.
  • Using OnPath Testing engineers will give you the best of all worlds: thorough testing, improved releases, happy users, and a balanced budget

Don't settle for half-measures – your software deserves the best opportunity to succeed in the market! 

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