Few aspects of releasing software are as important as QA testing. Quality assurance results in great products, satisfied stakeholders and, for commercial software companies, positive results not just in user feedback forms, but also on the balance sheet.
Despite the importance of QA testing, far too many companies view QA as a necessary evil — a task that stands in the way of releasing their application or website on time. They rush through the QA process and predictably end up with a release that just isn’t as good as it could be.
The reality is that QA is one of the most important aspects of developing any application, and it takes great people to do great QA testing. Below, we’ve listed five qualities that make great QA testers. If you’re in charge or hiring for quality assurance, make sure you take note of them.
Objectivity
Great QA testers are able to look at the results of tests, often carried out at great scale, and give an objective opinion on their results. Data doesn’t lie, and it’s important for any person involved in quality assurance to take an objective, facts-focused approach to interpreting results.
It also means being able to provide objective insight on results outside of bug testing, such as any usability or performance issues that can hold back a release. Can you make an objective call on whether or not an application is doing what it should for the end user?
Even more importantly, can you make an objective decision as to which bugs deserve to be the focus of your QA team, and which are minor enough to ignore? Every decision needs to have an objective, helpful answer in order for the QA process to produce a great end result.
People Skills
QA testing is equal parts testing and diplomacy. In many organizations, the role of QA isn’t just to find bugs, but to play geopolitics between the development side of the organization and other stakeholders to achieve a result that everyone is satisfied with.
Sometimes this means pointing out that bad code is bad, or that an interface isn’t achieving its designer’s goals. Sometimes it means subtly advising stakeholders that some parts of a project aren’t as good as they could be, or that not all issues can be completely resolved.
This is where people skills combine with analytical objectivity to create great QA testers. When you don’t just find quality issues, but find them and clearly explain how and why they need to be resolved, you become a great asset for ensuring your final release is a great product.
Technical Ability
It’s hard to form an objective opinion on poor code or design when you don’t fully understand the technology. Great QA testers don’t just have people skills and objectivity — they’re also technical people with real development and usability skills.
While tools make certain aspects of the QA process simple, there’s no substitute for knowing a topic first hand. QA testers that understand the code they’re testing don’t just provide a useful service for finding bugs — they also provide insight into how they happened in the first place.
This technical ability makes giving actionable advice to developers far easier. It also means the tester can make use of automation, simplifying and speeding up repetitive, time-consuming QA processes that would otherwise require manual testing.
Insight
Quality assurance plays an important role in determining the cost of a project, since bugs that go unfixed until late in development (or even worse, aren’t found until after release) cost much more to fix than those discovered and solved early.
Because early insight can make the difference between on-time, under-budget development and a slow, convoluted and expensive development process, it’s important for QA testers to provide insight and help as early in development as possible.
If a tester spots a small bug that could soon grow into a costly one, their insight could result in significant savings. Great QA testers think from an end user’s perspective and constantly look for scenarios that could produce bugs and issues, saving your organization time and money.
Confidence
Great testers need to know what they’re doing from a technical perspective. They also need to be confident enough to believe in their opinions and give them to developers and stakeholders without fear, even if it means occasionally slowing down a release or creating extra work.
The goal of QA is to ensure a great quality release, and the key to this is all too often the ability to make confident decisions in tough situations. If you discover a serious bug late in the testing process, long after it should have been discovered, are you confident enough to report it?
It’s important not to be afraid of being wrong as a tester, or of slowing things down. QA testers have an important job — to report anything that could negatively affect quality — and confidence plays a major part in helping a tester act on their discoveries.
Are you searching for talented QA testers?
Our on-demand crowdtesting platform lets you access thousands of QA testers to review your mobile app, website, landing page or email template in minutes. Learn more about MyCrowd QA’s powerful testing platform and discover how you can use it to simplify your QA testing process.
