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There are various types of testing and many quality assurance techniques. You can choose from methods ranging from manual testing, through unit tests, functional test, to end-to-end tests. Each testing technique brings additional value to the project and improves its quality. Some of those techniques are also confused or misused.

Quality Assurance Specialists are inseparable members of agile development teams. Yet, for many, their role is quite vague. It is usually associated only with testing developers’ code. While this is true to a large extent, there is also much more to what QAs can bring to your project team. Realizing this will allow you to better understand how development teams in Netguru work and see the role of quality assurance more clearly. Here are some not so obvious benefits of having a Quality Assurance Specialist in your project.

Every project – be it IT or any other field – requires some planning and documentation. How much product planning and documentation you will require depends on the project’s type and scope. A good and comprehensive documentation doesn’t sound like a bad idea, but does the old adage “measure twice and cut once” is right for your project? Or is the agile way the right way to go?

When delivering a final product, you might find yourself facing a tight deadline. The project has to meet certain specifications and the client’s requirements, and it needs to be free of bugs. In the midst of all that, end users are often forgotten. Users are going to have a bad time using your product if their needs are not taken into account during the development phase. This can, in turn, result in a product that is difficult to use and prone to human error. People tend to blame themselves for obstacles and errors they encounter using a product. This is quite unfortunate but mostly avoidable. See how you can avoid it. 

Okay, so you’ve decided to build a top-notch Android app. Great! The Android market is constantly growing, although it’s not easy to find success there. The first problem that you will face even before going to the market with your product is… testing. Which is an extremely difficult process, as the Android market is awfully fragmented. How to approach this and not fail even before your product’s debut on Google Play? Read our short guide on how to efficiently test and debug your Android application.

Code review makes your code stronger, reduces the risk of overlooking major bugs and supports the culture of feedback. The process constitutes an inherent part of best practices in web development, so skipping it in your projects might be a big mistake. Luckily, it can be easily and effectively conducted thanks to numerous automated code review tools that are available on the market. Don’t get overwhelmed by the number of providers! With our in-depth analysis, you’ll find a solution to fit your needs.

I have to admit that during my nearly one and a half year at Netguru my automated testing skills have not always been consistent. I struggled to make my tests modular, easy to write and easy to maintain. Nonetheless, learning some good DRY habits, Page Object patterns and reducing the amount of multitasking significantly reduced the effort I have to make in order to write manageable and clean tests.

Improving your website doesn’t end at employing the best staff to implement your vision. Sometimes you need to listen to the voice of the people. This is where optimization testing comes in. Let’s dive into that subject to learn what it is and how it can help you.

Here comes the next part of our blog post series about our favourite QA tools! After the presentation our favourite screenshot tools, we continue the discussion on the Chrome extensions which make our never-ending hunt for bugs more productive and efficient. The tools we present below are small and light-weight, but they will make a big difference for your workflow. All the extensions are completely free and for you to install in your browser!

Are you working on a new web app that will win the hearts of its users? Are you a resourceful client of a software house, a dedicated product owner, or an ingenious developer? Then, you want the user experience to be as good as possible – regardless of whether your app is a personal project or the next Facebook-killer. Graphic design and user interface are exciting, but their less obvious cousin, performance, is no less important. If you would like to take care of performance testing yourself or introduce your QA team to this task, keep reading – this blogpost will be about JMeter, an easy-to-use, yet powerful (and free!) tool to perform load tests with.

When it comes to mobile testing (well, testing in general) every QA specialist in the world does way too many manual tests. It's very time-consuming and often frustrating. So why would one do that? How can one avoid it? At Netguru we have been testing for over 8 years. We have some experience in mobile testing, and I would like to share with you some tips on how to automate your iOS testing, at least part of it.

After our first blogpost about useful QA tools, where we focused on apps for screenshots, we thought it would be helpful to describe some handy and easy-to-use Chrome extensions which can turn your browser into bug killing machine! All these plugins are totally free. So get ready to cut your address bar a bit and make room for some shiny new Chrome extensions which will make your day-to-day work much easier!

Back in April, we published a blog post on bug bashes - events where people with different backgrounds (both tech and non-tech) get together to test an app and discover the many bugs that have eluded the project’s Quality Assurance (QA). Now, with around 100 completed bug bashes under belt here at Netguru, we have some tips that will hopefully help your bug-bashers come back from the hunt with bugs aplenty.

A perfect screenshot is worth a thousand words. It saves time and guarantees that everyone is on the same page. Developers, PMs, QAs and clients use image captures on a daily basis, but which screenshot app can give you what you really need? Is it an entire website capture? A great image editor? Or maybe the sharing feature? Let’s have a look at our list of free screen-cap tools for Mac OSX.

It’s a common perception that quality assurance in software is mostly testing, and that a lot of the testing is manual testing. However, this is only a fraction of what QA specialists deal with. Let me explain how various technical skills can boost your performance as a quality assurance expert.

Testing in production and staging environments is the same basic activity – but you must know that different environments require different approaches.

Sounds nice, huh? Getting paid to play games! Or surfing the web and having fun with all those applications. If you’ve ever considered a career in the testing industry, I can tell you one thing - appearances can be deceiving. I’ve been in both game testing and app testing roles. Sit down, get comfy, and I’ll show you around a little bit.

It’s easy for a junior tester to feel intimidated by the huge number of software tests out there. The volume of material, information and tests available on the internet can be overwhelming. To put some order on this chaos, we’ve divided things up into two sections: Test Levels and Types of Software Tests. To help make things even clearer - we’ve also included some practical examples of each test. If you feel a little bit lost with the names and categories of the test world - this is exactly what you need to read!

Everyone makes mistakes, and software development is not an exception. That’s why testing should be an essential part of a developer’s work. You may not think about it in the process, but the truth is simple: while some mistakes in the code won't affect the functionality of the software, the others can have costly or even dangerous outcomes.