QA vs. QE: What Is the Best Approach for Your App Testing?

The debate between QA vs. QE and manual vs. automated has raged on. But it’s high time to end the “versus” mindset. Instead, we should focus on the strengths of both methodologies, recognizing that they play pivotal roles in ensuring top-notch user experiences and high-quality products. 

QA, emphasizing manual testing and exploratory techniques, provides the essential groundwork for identifying issues early in development. On the other hand, QE, or quality engineering, leverages automation and performance testing to dive deep into the product’s quality. 

However, the real magic happens when these two worlds unite in a fused testing approach, combining to accelerate development and enhance user satisfaction. Let’s explore how this harmonious integration of QA and QE can benefit your organization and motivate your testing teams to deliver exceptional results. 

Ensuring High-Quality User Experiences with QA

QA is the first battleground of any team with a product to deliver. Sure, QE can automate some tests, but you need a solid manual, QA-centric approach to start that development and cover all automated blind spots. Ensuring robust testing coverage in areas like smoke testing lets your team see issues early on without wasting time writing excess code. 

Another vein of testing unique to QA is exploratory testing. It’s impossible to cover all the functional requirements of a system with test cases that follow a predefined script. So exploratory testing adds another verification layer by helping unearth issues not covered by test cases. Exploratory testing provides rapid feedback at the early stages of software development and reviews the product characteristics from a user perspective. Experimental tests are also instrumental in uncovering impactful quality issues when teams need more time to prepare structured or automated test cases.

Diving Into Automation and Performance with QE

QE, or quality engineering, is another crucial aspect of your testing strategy. QE uses automated testing cases and DevOps integrations with skilled personnel to empower deeper quality strategies. Automated tests should maximize the coverage over the detailed scope of the testing phase. Good automation is reusable, versatile, and flexible, often integrating directly into your development platforms. 

While automation may be nothing new to the world of testing, managing the performance of your automation is a significant benefit. If your automated testing cycles are appropriately monitored and maintained, you can quickly discern bottlenecks in production while on the platform of choice for your deliverable. 

Performance testing management also gives way to actionable information that can inform you and your team about what your customers are experiencing when using a product. This is invaluable when considering the testing cycle and can only benefit your team when it comes time to implement fixes and get the product out the door.

Fusing QA and QE for Better and Faster Global Products 

Instead of considering testing as a matter of QA vs. QE, think fused testing. This allows you to merge the benefits of manual user-based testing with the power and speed of an automated workflow. Doing so is a major boon for any software development team. 

It can be a difficult task to understand the flaws and drawbacks of a piece of software. When using fused testing, you can significantly speed up the development process while maintaining the human touch to refine and shape your product for the end user. Fused testing allows failed automated tests to be rapidly assessed for root cause problems (flakey tests, candidate bugs, etc.) and quickly made actionable via burstable human touches.

Fusing QA and QE testing methodology into a cohesive whole can benefit your organization while ensuring your testing teams are rested, in good spirits, and motivated to deliver the best possible results.

Are you considering using fused testing for your software development? Testlio has a staff of expert testers who can help you develop a reusable and flexible framework for your testing needs. Reach out.