Before software is released to the public, it’s essential that it goes through sufficient quality assurance. This will help prevent the developer from releasing a product that does not meet the needs of its audience.
However, many people are not aware of the difference between quality assurance and quality control. In order to conduct both appropriately, it’s essential to know this information.
Let’s take a look.
What Is Quality Assurance?
Quality assurance, as the name suggests, is the process of guaranteeing that software developers are able to provide the best possible product to their clients. So, it should come as no surprise that the quality assurance process is fairly extensive in many cases.
This is simply due to the fact that complex software has a large number of nuances that need to be tested in order to determine whether or not there are areas that need improvement.
For instance, let’s assume that a local bank hired a software development organization to create a mobile application for their institution. The quality assurance process would involve running multiple tests on the product to ensure it meets the standards that have been set.
What Is Quality Control?
Quality control is highly similar to quality assurance. However, it is much more involved when it comes to testing the application.
More specifically, quality control is a systematic collection of processes that are conducted in order to gain insight into the functionality of the software. This means that the quality control process aims to test a large number of different nuances.
During the quality control process, the developer will test both functional and non-functional aspects of the software. Let’s take a brief look at what both of these are.
Functional testing
This type of testing aims to determine if problems exist within the program. For example, a developer may aim to discover whether or not there are issues with integrating their software with certain operating systems or devices.
They might also conduct tests that provide insight into what occurs when a new level of functionality is added to an existing program.
Without functional testing, you run the risk of releasing a product that is full of bugs and contingencies. A common scenario would involve the program crashing or performing incorrectly whenever the user provides an unexpected input.
Non-Functional Testing
In contrast, nonfunctional testing focuses more on the overall experience that the user will have while using the program. As you can most likely tell, this means that testing the performance of the application is one of the top priorities during non-functional testing.
Other categories include overall usability, the application’s capability to scale, and how it handles varying degrees of load.
In the event that an application fails multiple different segments of its non-functional test, it’s highly likely that a significant number of changes need to be made. Otherwise, the application simply will not be pleasant or intuitive to use.
What Are the Key Differences?
As previously mentioned, both of these processes are relatively similar. Therefore, it’s important that you have a strong understanding of their key differences.
Listed below are some of the most significant.
Quality Assurance
The primary purpose of quality assurance is to prevent a defect from occurring. It is also used to verify that the application is performing as intended and meets the required standards.
As such, they can be considered a proactive measure or a preventative technique.
You may be surprised to learn that quality assurance does not involve executing the program. This is due to the fact that developers essentially dissect the application and look for any areas that could prove to cause complications in the future.
Additionally, conducting proper quality assurance typically involves the entire team. This is due to the fact that you will need input from everyone who has worked on the software.
Quality Control
Quality control occurs after quality assurance. Its primary focus is to both identify and resolve any defects that exist within the application.
Unlike quality assurance, quality control always involves executing the program itself. After all, you can’t expect to find defects if you don’t run the application and attempt to use it as your target audience would.
Quality control also does not involve the entire development team like quality assurance does. A dedicated testing team is typically the only group of individuals who will be involved in the process.
Many people tend to think of quality control as a sort of safety net when it comes to discovering issues with an application. Due to the fact that it requires the testing team to execute the program, it can discover many different problems that the quality assurance team won’t be able to.
Do I Need Both?
Put simply, yes.
In order to ensure that the finished product meets all of the required standards, you will need to conduct both quality assurance and quality control. Otherwise, you may end up discovering problems later on when your users report issues or bugs that they find while using the application.
You can check out this resource by Quality Logic to learn more about these concepts.
Understanding These Differences Might Seem Difficult
The above guidelines will help ensure that you don’t encounter any issues, though. From here, you’ll find that you can seamlessly navigate the quality assurance and quality control processes.
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