QA can be costly – sometimes a very costly procedure. So is the game worth the candle? This is a complicated formula with many complicated inputs. Most enterprises work under a ‘return on investment’ scheme. If you spend money, then expect to get back at least as much money (ideally more). With QA, however, this relationship can be unobvious. Well-regarded and well-established product is able to get away with quality problems for longer time than a new, unknown project. Definitely, no one wants to create a deliberately low-quality product, but the pressure in the field of information technology is very high. Moreover, time to market can be critical, and sometimes it’s better to enter the market with something that is not quite perfect than with the ideal product, but two months later.
In web development, quality can be seen from four aspects.
Reach
Reach implies the market value position of your product – the number of people visiting your website or using your service. At that reach is directly correlated to profitability: the more viewers the site attracts, the more people who purchase the product or service. And from a developing point of view, search engine optimization (SEO) has the greatest impact on reach, therefore we will include SEO in the QA plan.
Functionality
If people visit your website or use your service, the quality of the site’s functionality will have a big impact on the retention of users: a site that works as it’s advertised is most likely to attract repeat visitors than the one that isn’t or operates worse.
Usability
While functionality is related to the correctness of the work, usability refers to the evaluation of human-computer interaction (HCI). The key question here is: “Is the functionality provided in a way that is suitable for the target audience?” This is often translated as “Is it easy to use?”, though the pursuit of usability can often interfere with flexibility or productivity: what seems to be convenient to the programmer, may be different from what seems convenient to a non-technical consumer. Put it differently, when assessing usability you need to consider the target audience. Since the main input to measurement of usability is a user, it does not usually need to be automated. Nevertheless, user testing should be included in the QA plan.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is the most subjective of the four aspects and accordingly the least relevant to the development process. When it comes to the aesthetics of the site, there are few development concerns. Nevertheless, a regular analysis of the aesthetics of a website should be part of the QA plan.
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