10 QA Pitfalls to Avoid When Developing a Mobile App
It is pretty normal for errors to occur at any stage of the app development life cycle. No matter how trained and dedicated a team you have, errors are bound to creep into projects. This implies that there is always a scope for improvement in quality.
QA testing is a technique used to assess the quality process, find the flaws in the process, take necessary steps to improve and prevent errors in a product during its development phase. The ultimate goal of QA is to ensure that the product delivered fulfills the user’s quality expectations.
This article focuses on the 10 QA pitfalls to avoid while developing a mobile app.
1. Ignoring QA stage
Developing a mobile app involves a lot of work due to which teams, sometimes, ignore the QA process entirely. This often results in the delivery of a faulty mobile app to the client or public, resulting in loss of revenue. The QA stage cannot be overlooked.
2. Unorganized feedback process
Once a mobile app is developed, the development team awaits feedback from different parties. Often, the feedback received is from different channels of communication such as emails, phone calls or messages.
If such feedback is inconsistent, undocumented and unorganized, it becomes difficult for the development team to execute properly. Essential feedback and project management systems such as Jira, applied with an agile scrum methodology, are essential tools to adhere to.
Also, a detailed objective for developing the mobile app including the target audience, customer behavior, etc., will help the feedback that you receive to be more accurate.
3. Lack of real-time communication between with remote teams
Today's work culture is vastly different from what it was a decade ago. Now, companies have a large number of employees who work remotely. Simply depending on emails or chats as a means of communication is a bad idea. If the team is not using any real-time feedback tool, it can lead to communication failures.
4. Leaving room for assumptions
When a client assigns you the task of testing a mobile app, nothing should be assumed. Every minute detail pertaining to the project should be documented and shared with team members. Leave no assumptions in your project documentation.
5. Ignoring client feedback
At every stage of the mobile app development, ask for client feedback. Interact with the client frequently, get their suggestions or feedback and develop the product as per their requirements. For your team, the app you developed might look absolutely great but your client might have an entirely different opinion. Share a dashboard with the client to interact at each stage of the app development process. Even then, push for a beta launch in controlled environments.
6. Delaying the testing process
Never wait until the development stage is complete to start testing. Errors will pile up and compound. Testing and gathering feedback should be done at each stage of the development process, and will save potentially huge rebuilds later on down the line.
7. Reporting inconsistent bugs
When the testing team finds and reports inconsistent bugs to the developers, it would result in addressing the wrong issues. Therefore, it is necessary to use the right (and consistent) tools across the board to track and report bugs.
8. Receiving feedback from incorrect people
Feedback should always be given by the right people. Don’t fall into the trap of allowing dozens of people to send feedback, it will be confusing and contradictory. Assign specific people for the right sectors of the development.
9. Ignoring critical areas
Often, the development team gets feedback on the functional aspects and very little on the performance of an app. Each phase of the development process is of utmost importance. The testing team must ensure that they do not ignore any critical area of the project.
10. Failing to log least important bugs
Sometimes, the bugs that seem to be of least importance go unreported and they create problems when the app is uploaded to the app store. A good tester ideally reports all the bugs no matter how trivial it seems.
