10 Best Practices in Software QA for 2024

Creating a top-notch app isn’t just about having a great idea—it’s about making sure it works flawlessly and keeps users happy. Quality assurance (QA) plays a huge role in this, ensuring your app is secure, reliable, and performs well. In this article, we’ll cover the top 10 QA best practices for 2024 that can help your team work more efficiently, reduce bugs, and deliver high-quality software.

Key takeaways:

• Comprehensive QA: QA ensures software meets requirements throughout the development lifecycle, from planning to deployment.
• Continuous learning & testing: Ongoing education and proactive testing identify issues early and maintain high-quality software.
• AI-powered testing: AI tools optimize test coverage, predict bugs, and automate repetitive tasks, allowing QA engineers to focus on critical issues and accelerate testing cycles.
• Test automation: Test automation improves software reliability, efficiency, and scalability by detecting bugs early, reducing manual testing, and speeding up the release cycle.
• Strong security: Robust security measures, like API testing and infrastructure scans, protect user data and ensure compliance.
• Early performance testing: Early testing catches server-side issues and optimizes performance.
• Accessibility compliance: Follow WCAG standards with both automated and manual tests to create inclusive, compliant software.
• Proactive QA engineers: Empowering QA engineers to take ownership drives continuous improvement and innovation.

What is QA?

Quality assurance (QA) involves systematic activities designed to ensure that software meets specified requirements and functions correctly. Unlike quality control, which focuses on identifying and fixing issues post-production, QA is a proactive process that aims to prevent defects by improving processes.

The software development process includes various activities aimed at enhancing product quality through quality assurance. QA’s scope covers the entire software development lifecycle, from gathering requirements and giving design feedback to ensuring quality during development, testing, and deployment. This thorough approach helps catch issues early, lowering the risk of defects in the final product.

A quality assurance specialist implements QA processes, performs audits, and works closely with development teams to enhance quality practices. This collaborative effort ensures that software quality is maintained throughout the development lifecycle.

Key elements of QA testing process

The QA process begins with defining quality standards, which serve as benchmarks against which software quality is measured. The planning stage involves outlining the QA process, including the scope, resources, and schedule for testing activities.

Implementing quality control procedures during the execution phase is crucial for systematically detecting and addressing defects. Throughout this process, thorough documentation is essential for tracking progress, maintaining clear communication, and ensuring accountability. Tools like JIRA help manage this by creating tickets for every task, including detailed acceptance criteria that outline expected outcomes and app behavior.

QA best practices in software development

1. Develop a dedicated testing strategy for every product

For effective QA, every product needs a dedicated, business-oriented testing strategy. This comprehensive document aligns the team and stakeholders, summarizing the testing approach and efforts. Here’s how to create an effective testing strategy:

• Define clear goals: The primary goals of testing will vary based on the product type. For instance, an accounting app’s focus should be on data persistence, whereas an event ticketing app must prioritize infrastructure resilience during high-demand periods. Clearly define what success looks like for your application and what specific areas you aim to test.
• Identify risks and challenges: Anticipate potential risks and challenges that could arise during implementation. This proactive approach helps in preparing mitigation strategies and ensures smoother execution.
• Outline the testing process: Detail the daily testing activities and key initiatives. This includes:
  • QA involvement in ticket preparation: Outline the QA engineer's role during the initial stages of ticket creation.
  • Documentation of test cases: Clarify how and where test cases will be documented.
  • Testing and issue reporting: Define how tickets will be tested and how issues will be reported and prioritized.
  • QA’s role in releases: Describe QA’s involvement before, during, and after the release process.
  • Scope of QA testing: Clearly state what is within and outside the scope of QA testing, and what responsibilities lie with developers.
  • Test automation strategy: Collaboratively plan the introduction of test automation layers with the team. Determine which types of tests (e.g., unit, integration, end-to-end) will be applied, who will write and maintain them, and the appropriate technologies, programming languages, and frameworks based on technical considerations and team input.
    • • Integration testing: Highlight the importance of integration testing to validate how individual software components work together within the complete system. Decide whether it will be performed manually or automated through CI/CD pipelines.
  • Additional context: Provide any other relevant information needed by your team to understand the testing context better.

2. Use AI in your daily work

AI tools can significantly enhance efficiency in QA processes when used wisely. While AI can assist in various tasks, it's essential to understand how to leverage these tools effectively to support your work.

Practical applications of AI:

• Creating test scenarios: AI can help generate test scenarios for described user flows, making it easier to develop comprehensive test cases.
• Generating and transforming test data: AI tools can automate the creation and transformation of test data, saving time and ensuring accuracy.
• Coding assistance: Tools like Copilot can speed up coding for test automation scripts, creation of JSON schemas for API contract tests, config files for Docker, Docker Compose, configs for CI pipelines. They allow you to generate any code you need to evaluate the results of complex test tasks such as custom database migrations testing, data importing analytics and many more. It can help you understand unfamiliar code by answering questions you’d typically search for online.
• Debugging: AI can assist in debugging issues at any level, providing insights and suggestions to resolve problems quickly.
• Command reminders: AI can remind you of CLI commands that you might have forgotten, making command-line tasks more efficient.
• Documentation and code explanation: AI can assist in creating documentation and explaining code, improving understanding and knowledge sharing within the team.

While AI is a powerful tool, it’s important to remember that it complements, rather than replaces, human skills. AI tools like ChatGPT or Copilot can assist you, but they cannot substitute the fundamental coding skills and knowledge of popular IT concepts and solutions. Continuous education, learning, and practice remain crucial.

3. Focus on security

For effective QA, focusing on security is crucial, especially as more services go digital across both commercial and public sectors. Here’s how QA engineers can ensure robust security at every stage of the delivery process:

• Analyze user flows for security holes: Look for potential vulnerabilities, especially in the signup, login, and onboarding processes, that could lead to impersonation or unauthorized data access.
• Secure access and onboarding: Consider security implications when designing access controls and user onboarding processes.
• Implement test automation for multi-access levels: Use unit tests and integration tests to ensure security at different access levels.
• Advocate for high coding standards: Promote code reviews, use static security analytic tools in the CI pipeline, include linters, regularly update libraries, Docker images, and handle secrets according to the frameworks guidelines.
• Test APIs with security in mind: Ensure resource access is limited to authorized users, validate API clients, consider rate limits for cost-intensive endpoints, and run automated security scans on the API.
• Scan infrastructure: Regularly scan your infrastructure for vulnerabilities.
• Promote security awareness: Raise security concerns within the team and emphasize that security is a collective responsibility.
• Consider social engineering risks: Educate all team members and clients on security protocols and underlying assumptions to help prevent social engineering attacks.
• Adhere to compliance and regulatory constraints: Remind the team of relevant standards and the financial risks of non-compliance.

4. Test performance alongside development

Validate early: Start performance testing early—don't wait until the product is fully complete. Test identified parts of the system as soon as possible, focusing on key features, potential bottlenecks, custom solutions, and APIs. Early validation helps catch issues before they become costly and avoids disappointment for both the team and business stakeholders.

Enable effective collaboration: Performance testing is much easier with tools like k6. It lets you script tests, store them in a Git repository, run them on demand from the CI pipeline, execute them on a dedicated server, or even run them locally. This flexibility enables continuous performance assessment throughout development.

Implement a shift-left approach: Performance testing has evolved from being a final step at the end of a project to an ongoing process. Now, it focuses on testing specific parts of the system as developers deliver them, based on whether their risk is assessed as high. This shift-left approach addresses performance issues early, ensuring a more scalable solution from the beginning.

Test client-side performance: Client-side performance testing is crucial for businesses as it impacts sales conversion rates for e-commerce websites and app reviews for mobile applications. End-users expect digital products to run smoothly, making client-side performance testing a crucial part of the QA process.

5. Focus on accessibility

Ensuring your product is accessible to all users, including those with temporary or permanent disabilities, is a critical aspect of quality assurance. Accessibility isn't just a moral and ethical obligation; it's also a legal requirement. In 2023, there were more than 4,600 digital accessibility cases in U.S. courts, according to UsableNet, underscoring the growing importance of this issue. These cases typically involved claims such as the lack of subtitles for video content, WCAG violations in user flows, and poor support for screen readers.

The European Accessibility Act, which will increase enforcement from June 28, 2025, highlights the global push towards accessibility. This regulation will apply to the private sector, impacting industries such as e-commerce, consumer banking, transportation, TV, and video streaming.

To ensure robust accessibility, QA engineers should:

• Use automated tools: Incorporate automated tools in your testing portfolio to check if your application meets WCAG 2.2 and EN 301 549 standards.
• Conduct manual tests: Perform manual tests focused on accessibility using screen readers, keyboard navigation, and accessibility inspectors.
• Raise awareness among developers: Ensure the development team, including backend developers, is aware of these regulations. For instance, PDF documents generated by backend code must also meet accessibility requirements.

6. Prioritize user experience (UX)

Your products need the best user experience (UX) to succeed. Poor UX can drive clients away, so it's crucial to be critical when testing your applications. Ensure your product supports the following key areas:

• Simple and understandable user flows: Make sure users can navigate your application effortlessly. Complex or confusing user flows can frustrate users and lead to abandonment.
• Convenient and secure authentication: Implement authentication processes that are both user-friendly and secure. Striking a balance between ease of use and security is essential for a positive UX.
• Optimal client-side performance: Use tools to monitor and enhance the performance of your application. Each browser has built-in tools that serve as a good entry point for performance testing and optimization.
• Support for mobile devices: Given the rising importance of mobile commerce, ensure your products are fully optimized for mobile devices. Studies forecast that by 2027, mobile sales in the U.S. e-commerce market alone will generate over $800 billion, doubling the current amount. This trend is global, driven by Gen Z’s increasing involvement in online shopping. Focus on testing your products extensively on mobile devices to capture this growing market.

7. Introduce test automation early in development

Test automation is essential to maintain the original quality of the product over time, so it should be integrated into your daily work routine from the outset.

There is ongoing debate about whether QA should automate tests at the early stages of development. Concerns are valid—solutions might change, and code may need adjustments or even be discarded. However, automating early can provide significant benefits and support manual testing efforts.

Advantages of early automation:

• Maintain quality: Early automation helps ensure that the quality of the product is maintained during the development period.
• Support manual testing: Automation can speed up manual testing processes and facilitate detailed, extended regression tests that can be run locally.
• Flexibility: You don’t always need to deploy automated tests in a scheduled manner. Sometimes, creating scripts to assist with manual testing is sufficient.

Test automation, like overall quality, is a shared responsibility across the entire team. It’s a collaborative effort that requires clear roles and responsibilities.

• Define responsibilities: Split the responsibility among team members. Have a clear vision of who tests what at each stage.
• Select tools and technologies: Decide what types of tests to write and which technologies or frameworks to use. Provide example tests to guide the process.
• Regular syncs: Regularly synchronize with your teammates about progress and results to ensure alignment and continuous improvement.

8. Shift left testing

Shift left testing involves testing solutions before they reach a deployed environment, often working closely with developers to perform manual tests on fresh versions of the solution directly from a Git branch. This approach provides the fastest possible feedback and offers numerous benefits:

• Early feedback: Shift left testing gives developers quick feedback about the delivered system components, accelerating the development of high-quality solutions.
• Enhanced understanding: This approach pushes QA engineers to gain a deeper understanding of the solution and encourages close collaboration with developers.
• Early defect identification: By identifying defects at an early stage, when solutions are not yet set in stone, adjustments are less time-consuming.
• Critical adjustments: Testing critical parts of the system locally first makes it easier to ensure these adjustments are thoroughly vetted before wider deployment.
• Proactive design testing: Shift left includes testing designed flows and prototypes, consulting with designers and product owners on user flows and UI. This proactive approach helps spot and resolve flow-related issues or defects early, resulting in a more efficient development process.

9. Promote ownership and proactiveness

As QA engineers, we possess both technical expertise and a comprehensive understanding of the business context of the application. This blend of knowledge gives us the responsibility to identify and communicate potential technical and operational risks with new features, while considering the current architecture and existing systems.

• Identify and communicate risks: We must proactively identify potential risks and communicate them effectively to the team. This involves analyzing new features in the context of the existing system and architecture.
• Shape and improve solutions: Our role directly contributes to shaping solutions. Taking ownership allows us to spot issues, propose solutions, and work closely with the team to implement improvements.
• Collaboration and communication: Strong communication and collaboration skills are essential. Working closely with developers, product owners, and other stakeholders helps catch issues early and ensures solutions align with business goals.
• Proactive problem solving: A proactive approach and ownership mindset are crucial. By identifying issues early and resolving them before they escalate, we help ensure the product’s overall success.

10. Continuous education and growth

The tech landscape is constantly evolving, with new tools, automation frameworks, solutions, and services emerging each year. To work efficiently and support your team with the best advice, it's crucial to stay updated with these trends. Keeping up with the latest tech can be challenging, but applying your skills effectively and delivering top-notch service is incredibly rewarding.

Key areas for continuous growth:

Technical skills: Staying current with the latest technologies and frameworks is essential. Continuously learning new tools and solutions will enable you to offer the best support and advice to your team.

Personal skills: Our work requires not only technical expertise but also strong personal skills. Developing these skills can enhance team collaboration and overall effectiveness. Some important personal skills include:

• Meeting management: Effectively managing meetings to ensure they are productive and have satisfying outcomes.
• Leadership in discussions: Leading discussions and brainstorming sessions to drive meaningful and actionable results.
• Constructive feedback: Providing feedback on work and solutions in a constructive and supportive manner.

By focusing on both technical and personal skill development, you can grow as an expert and a person (technical skill is not the only quality which matters).

Table with QA best practices

QA in 2024: Ensuring security, performance, and accessibility

Early performance testing is key to catching and resolving issues before they escalate. Tools like k6 can automate these tests, ensuring server-side performance is optimized efficiently from the start.

Accessibility should be a priority, with compliance to WCAG standards achieved through a mix of automated and manual tests. Addressing accessibility early in the design and prototyping phases ensures inclusive products that meet legal requirements and user needs.

Adopting a shift-left approach allows for earlier defect detection, improving both efficiency and collaboration between QA and developers. Encouraging QA engineers to take ownership and be proactive fosters continuous improvement and effective problem-solving.

Staying up-to-date with the latest technologies and using AI tools can further boost efficiency in tasks like test generation, debugging, and documentation. By following these best practices, QA teams can deliver high-quality software that not only meets user expectations but also stays competitive in 2024 and beyond.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best QA practice?

The best QA practices include implementing test automation and manual testing, leveraging AI tools, using agile methodologies, writing effective test cases, prioritizing communication, and focusing on security in testing. These strategies can significantly enhance the quality of your QA process.

What is the primary goal of quality assurance in software testing?

The primary goal of quality assurance in software testing is to ensure the final product meets specified requirements and maintains its quality over time. It focuses on delivering a reliable, high-quality software product.

When should manual testing be preferred over automated testing?

Manual testing should be preferred over automated testing for exploratory, usability, and ad hoc testing, which require human judgment and interaction.