I’m writing this post after the completion of a big Software Testing assignment. It was whole QTP Descriptive Programming and Performance Testing Planning. So, it took a long time. Now onwards, I’ll try to post on regular basis.
IEEE defines the Quality as “the degree to which a system, component, or process meets specified requirements, and customer or user needs or expectations”.
And
ISO define the Quality as “the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy specified or implied needs”.
In other words we can say that “Meeting Customer Needs” is the key in these definitions.
Basically, Quality is a subjective term. E.g. according to finance department cost can be the major quality factor and for users usability can be basic quality factor. However, we can say that a software is quality a software if it is reasonably bug free, delivered on time, maintainable, reusable, testable etc.
Software Quality Assurance (SQA) is the set of methods used to improve internal and external qualities. SQA aims at preventing, identifying and removing defects throughout the development cycle as early as possible, as such reducing test and maintenance costs.
Software Testing shows the lack of external quality i.e. correctness, efficiency, reliability. External quality displays the visible symptoms when there are issues, but the roots are invisible internal quality attributes like program structure, complexity, coupling, testability, reusability, readability, maintainability etc.
Remember, throwing a lot of testing at the product can improve your external quality to an extent that it is satisfactory for your customers, but at a significant cost.
At the end I’ve an interesting question for you — whether “the quality of your software makes your customers happy” or “the customers define the quality of your software”?
This is a topic of big debate. Many software engineers have different views about this. Let’s leave comment on this topic so that we can see the views of different professionals.
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