The Best Guide to Validation Testing

Get up to speed on validation testing and learn the different stages, techniques and tools used!

Validation in software testing is of utmost importance. 

That’s why, in an effort to ease your anxiety and save you from the tons of trial and error, in this article we’ll be answering all of the common questions we get about validation testing.

Our main goal is to give you a deeper insight into the topic and also explain why validation is a critical component of software development. 

In this section, we’ll help you get a handle on the fundamentals.

So if you’re new to validation testing, or want to make sure you’re on the right track, you’ll love this section.

Then, in later sections, we’ll cover advanced tips, techniques, strategies and case studies. But for now, let’s cover the basics of validation testing.

Validation testing is the Quality Assurance (QA) process of verifying that a software application meets the needs and requirements of its stakeholders.

The main goal of validation testing is to verify whether a software product meets its acceptance criteria.

When it comes to software testing, validation and verification are often confused with one another (We’ll dig into their differences in a bit!). This article will focus on validation testing, covering everything from its purpose and definition to best practices, tools and techniques.

People doing software testing — from developers, QA, BA, to PM, etc. — use a variety of tools and techniques to evaluate software products with a focus on user experience.

And, by focusing on user satisfaction, software validation directly contributes to business value. So, what is validation testing exactly?

What Is Validation Testing?

Validation testing is the practice of ensuring that software meets the quality standards set by the customer and that the product meets customer requirements. It is one of many different types of testing in software. 

Validation testing is also sometimes called acceptance testing because it’s usually performed once the developer has finished writing code. In this sense, it’s a process of checking to see if a product can be accepted based on certain criteria or requirements that are defined in advance by the consumer or user.

Businesses often perform validation testing as part of their software development life cycle (SDLC). Both waterfall and agile models require code review to ensure that it works as intended and does not contain defects, bugs or errors.

Validation testing guarantees that the product is ready for release and meets customer expectations — so it’s important to get it right. But how do you know when you’re done? What does validation testing mean? How does this differ from verification testing? And, most importantly, how do you do it?

Let’s break each element down.

What is Software Testing & Why is Testing Important?

Typically, testing is classified into three categories:

1. Functional Testing
2. Non-Functional Testing, ex Performance Testing
3. Maintenance (Regression and Maintenance)

Validation is part of a larger suite of tests known as non-functional testing, which also includes performance and usability testing.

Validation testing usually occurs during the final stages of development and prior to releasing a new product or service to customers. 

Validation testing can occur alongside other types of testing, such as verification testing, unit testing and integration testing. Together these various types of testing seek to ensure that a product is as high-quality and usable as possible while maintaining security and performance standards.

In addition to verifying that a product meets defined requirements, validation also includes ensuring that any appropriate documentation for using the software exists, and is both clear and accurate. This includes instructions on installation and configuration, usability guidelines, user support information and more. Validation should be carried out by users who represent each type of user for the software application; for example, people with different levels of technical ability might test an interface to ensure it’s easy enough for a novice user to understand but not so simple that an experienced user finds it boring or repetitive.

What are the different stages of validation testing?

By now, perhaps you’re wondering, “How do you perform a validation test?”

In this section, we will walk you through the different stages of development testing. These are the high-level steps that will help you plan your validation testing activities.

You can use these steps as a guideline for developing your acceptance testing process. When you’re clear on the business purpose of validation testing and you’re armed with a well-defined process and a solid strategy that you can use, you can save your company or client time and help them have a greater return on investment (ROI).

So if you’ve ever struggled with the validation testing process, this section will come in handy.

Stages of Validation Testing Process

Typically, when you conduct validation tests on your software, these are the steps involved:

• Validation Planning – This is a project-specific plan that defines the scope and goals of your validation project. Think of this as high-level planning for your product’s validation.
• Define Requirements – Whether you’re just starting the software development process or you’re making changes to an existing product, you’ll need to establish a set of requirements to work toward. These requirements stipulate what features your product should include and how those features should work. This defines the test criteria, which is essential for verification and validation.
• Selecting a Team – You’ll need to field an experienced and competent development team (client included).
• Developing Documents – Develop a user specification document where you describe the operating conditions.
• Estimation/Evaluation – Next, we proceed with the software testing stage, verify it operates as originally intended and submit a validation report.
• Fixing Bugs or Incorporating Changes – Finally, update the software to remove any bugs or issues found during the evaluation.

The validation process may also include functionality testing:

• Unit Testing – Black box, White box, and/or Gray box to search for bugs in the product segment.
• Integration Testing – Also known as ‘I & T’ (Integration and Testing), ‘String Testing’ and ‘Thread Testing’ Testing, this is where you test the interfaces and flow of data/information between the modules. Strategies to execute include:
  • Big Bang Approach
  • Incremental Approach
    • Top-Down Approach
    •  Bottom-Up Approach
    • Sandwich Approach – Combination of Top-Down and Bottom-Up
• System Testing – This consists of a series of different tests to evaluate the end-to-end system specifications. May include:
  • Sanity Testing – A subset of Regression Testing. This is done to check that the new functionalities/bugs have been fixed in a particular component
  • Smoke Testing – A subset of Acceptance Testing. This is done to ensure the critical functionalities of the entire system from end to end are working as expected.
  • Regression Testing – 

• Performance Qualification: UAT (User Acceptance testing) – Alpha and Beta testing.
• Production: This is the part of the software development practice where the software is put into production.

What makes validation testing such a big deal? Keep reading to find out…

Why Is Validation Testing Important?

In 2020, the global software development market size was valued at $389.86 billion.

Experts project it to exceed $800,000 ($824,848 to be specific) by 2026.

It looks like Marc Andreessen — co-founder and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz — wasn’t exaggerating when he said that software is eating the world. 

Global Software Market Revenue Projections

In fact, Herb Krasner —  Consortium for Information & Software Quality™ (CISQ™) Advisory Board Member, retired Professor of Software Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of The Cost of Poor Software Quality in the U.S.: A 2020 Report — says: 

“While software is eating the world more voraciously than ever before, the cost of poor software quality is rising, and mostly still hidden. Organizations spend way too much unquantified time finding and fixing defects in new software and dealing with legacy software that cannot be easily evolved and modified.”

With that, let’s quickly look at some key testing and quality statistics:

• Experts predict by 2026, the global test automation market size will boom to almost $50 billion
• 67% of consumers cite bad experiences as a reason for churn, although only 4% of customers will complain directly to a company about a poor experience
• When Capgemini and Micro Focus surveyed 1,750 senior executives in corporate IT management functions across 32 countries about their top priorities, 63% said enhancing customer experience, 62% said enhancing security, 61% said higher responsiveness to business demands, and 61% said the higher quality of software solutions

With the plethora of software at consumers’ disposal today, the importance of using software testing to ensure a quality product can’t be overstated.

Validation testing is a critical part of the software development lifecycle. Why?

Because undetected defects and bugs can disappoint and frustrate users, expose your company to data breaches and ransomware attacks, and even trigger critical system outages.

Over the last two to three decades, embedded software has crept into an increasing number of products, many of which were traditionally created using mechanical and electrical disciplines. From cell phones to home appliances and even satellites, software has permeated virtually every area of our lives. In many cases, these products rely heavily on the underlying software to continue operating. There is almost nothing nowadays that doesn’t have some kind of software inside.

Poor quality — and failures — in embedded software can occasionally cause death or serious injury. Consequently, devices like passenger vehicles and medical instruments have serious liability issues. That’s why the highest quality control and testing practices are necessary in almost every domain of software development.

In 2006, NASA’s annual report on Independent Verification and Validation showed that for large software projects the percentage of software rework can approach 50%.

One way to help improve quality and reduce costs is by conducting rigorous testing of your product at various stages of its development. And lowering costs is important because the cost of finding and fixing bugs and defects is the largest single cost driver in the software industry.

In other words, validation testing is important because it helps improve quality and reduce costs. Here are a few more reasons why validation testing is important:

• To ensure customer satisfaction
• To be confident about product quality
• To fulfill the client’s requirements efficiently
• Allows easier software adoption by the end-user

As you can see, validation is a critical component of the testing lifecycle.

Software testing is important because even the most expensive and advanced software can contain bugs that not only cause monetary loss, but are potentially dangerous to its users. History is full of examples.

• In April 2015, a software glitch caused a Bloomberg terminal in London to crash. This affected more than 300,000 traders in the financial markets. It also forced the government to postpone a 3bn pound debt sale.
• Nissan recalled more than 1 million cars because of a software failure in the airbag sensory detectors. Two reported accidents were attributed to the software failure.
• In response to a software failure in its POS system, Starbucks closed almost 60% of its stores in the U.S and Canada. At one point during the issue, the company served coffee for free because they were unable to process transactions.
• Some of Amazon’s third-party retailers incurred heavy losses when their product prices mysteriously dropped to 1p because of a software glitch.
• In 2015 F-35 fighter planes experienced a software bug that left them unable to correctly detect targets.
• In 1985, Therac-25 radiation therapy machines malfunctioned because of a software bug and delivered lethal radiation doses to patients, causing the deaths of 3 people and critically injuring 3 other people.
• In 1994, a software bug caused the crash of China Airlines Airbus A300, killing 264 people.
• In 1999, a $1.2 billion military satellite launch failed because of a software bug. This is the most expensive accident recorded.
• In 1996, 823 customers of a major U.S. bank were credited with 920 million dollars because of a software bug.

Those are some of the reasons acceptance testing is important to end-users and society as a whole. But, what about product developers? What role does validation play when it comes to software quality?

Why is validation testing important to product development?

The #1 thing that makes validation testing so important with regard to product development is validation ensures the status of the design meets the right set of requirements at a given stage.

By gating each phase with clear exit criteria and deliverables, you ensure optimal use of resources and quality advancement. As a general guideline, the further along a product is in development, the more expensive it becomes to make changes. For complex products, production investments run into the millions. The most ambitious products, like aircraft, require thousands of workers and billions in fixed production costs. And, as the development process progresses towards production, the cost of these tweaks rises exponentially.

Consequently, a fundamental overriding goal of any product development initiative is to fix issues early, reducing the risk of costly modifications at later stages. This is where validation testing comes in.

Acceptance testing your product enables you to catch any bugs that made it through previous phases of the development cycle undetected. This allows you to fix them before production which ultimately provides your customers with a better experience. 

And it makes sense. After all, when 81% of companies compete on customer experience alone, validation testing is more than a testing framework—it’s a customer experience framework. Understanding how to plan, execute, and optimize your validation testing strategy is key to testing from your user’s perspective.

In fact, according to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, “By applying insights from testing and validation, companies can reduce rework and improve production ramp-up and thereby accelerate time to market. They can also enhance their abilities to integrate features that target specific customer needs early in the design process and improve customers’ perception of quality. The result is greater customer satisfaction and higher market share. High quality is directly linked to increased revenue from repurchases and upgrades, new business gained by word of mouth, and lower costs to serve customers.”

High-quality products lead to happy customers.

Not only can effective validation testing help increase product quality, but it can give your company a competitive advantage and deliver cost savings.

McKinsey data shows that testing and validation processes are an essential part of all steps of the system engineering V-model (a framework for testing and validation, illustrated below). Testing and validation typically account for 20 to 30 percent of development costs

It is easy to see how software testing is important because if there are any bugs or issues in the software, they can be identified early and can be solved before the delivery of the software product. A properly tested software product assures reliability, security and high performance which in turn results in saving time, cost-efficiency and increased customer satisfaction.

On the other hand, poor quality software can result in security and safety issues, loss of revenue and productivity, reputation damage, and increased development costs.

The Consortium for Information & Software Quality™ (CISQ™) defines poor-quality software as “products that don’t provide value to users, fail to meet profit goals, produce serious complaints and problems and fail to contribute in some way to the goals of humanity.”

Testing throughout the development process is one way to increase the quality of the software you’re developing.

Thus, involving testers into work at the first stages of development has a range of advantages: helping the team to understand customers’ goals, saving a lot of time, minimizing expenses, and optimizing the approach to testing.” 

That’s why quality becomes increasingly more important because, traditionally, the costs of finding and fixing bugs have been the largest expense when developing as well as enhancing and maintaining large software applications.

Note that software testing is one of your biggest levers when it comes to delivering a bug-free product.

ITT Corp.’s first Vice President of Quality, Phil Crosby, became famous for the aphorism “quality is free.” He has a good point since software quality is not only free but leads to shorter development schedules, lower development costs, and greatly reduced costs for maintenance and total costs of ownership (TCO)

In their 2012 book, The Economics of Software Quality, Capers Jones and Olivier Bonsignour note, “…from an analysis of about 13,000 software projects between 1973 and today, it is gratifying to observe that high-quality levels are invariably associated with shorter-than-average development schedules and lower-than-average development costs”

Jones and Bonsignour go on to say, “The real economic value of high quality is only partially related to defect repair costs. It is true that high quality leads to fewer defects and therefore to lower defect repair costs. But its major economic benefits are due to the fact that high quality:

• Reduces the odds of large-system cancellations
• Reduces the odds of litigation for outsourced projects
• Shortens development schedules
• Lowers development costs
• Lowers maintenance costs
• Reduces warranty costs
• Increases customer satisfaction.” 

Validation Testing is an important part of product development since it helps validate if all requirements (functional and nonfunctional) are actually working. Validating these different requirements allows you to verify that the product that’s being developed correctly follows the established guidelines, stakeholder expectations and quality controls previously specified. On the other hand, Validation Testing also helps make sure that client needs are being taken into account.

What’s the difference between verification and validation in testing?

Now it’s time for the fun stuff: What’s the difference between validation and verification testing in software engineering?

This is a question that is more common than you may think. 

Validation and verification testing are important concepts. If you’re a software manager, executive, or quality assurance team member involved in planning, estimating, executing, and maintaining software, you need to understand the difference between verification testing and validation testing.

Why?

Well, it’s no secret that there’s often a lot of confusion around the difference between verification and validation in software testing. Some people think verification and validation are synonymous and use the terms interchangeably. Some claim that they are completely different.

But what’s the truth?

The truth is these two words have distinct meanings and convey different ideas. And product developers need to grasp the importance and difference of these essential tests.

Validation testing follows software verification, which takes place earlier in the software development process. Verification ensures that a product meets requirements from an engineering perspective, while validation ensures that it meets user needs.

In some cases, these two measures can be combined into one test cycle called “verification and validation” (V&V).

The distinction between validation and verification is a fine one. The two are used interchangeably in some cases, but they do have differences — namely, when they occur during the development process. Software verification occurs first, before the software is released for testing. Validation happens after developers write code and then test it to make sure the product does what it’s intended to do.

As you can see in the image below, verification and validation testing have different goals.

For example, part of the verification process includes checking documents, design, code and programs, unlike the validation process which includes testing and validation of the actual product.

Some other differences between verification and validation in software testing include:

• Verification determines whether the software conforms to a specification while validation determines whether the software meets requirements and expectations. 
• Verification uses methods like reviews, walkthroughs, inspections and desk-checking while validation uses methods like black-box testing, white-box testing and non-functional testing.
• The goal of verification is to find bugs early in the development cycle while validation is designed to find bugs that verification did not catch.

Verification	Validation
Static process analyzing documents and not the actual end product	Dynamic testing of software product by running it
Process-oriented approach	Product-oriented approach
Answers the question “Are we building the product right?”	Answers the question “Are we building the right product?”
Involves activities like document review, test cases review, walk-throughs, inspection, etc.	Involves activities like functional testing, automation testiong, etc.

In other words, when comparing validation to verification in software testing, remember the verification process targets software architecture, design, database, etc. whereas the validation process targets the entire software product.

Another difference between verification and validation in software testing is that verification is done by the QA team while validation is handled by the testing team with the help of the QA team.

Verification comes before validation, whereas validation comes after verification. Thus, verification does not involve code execution while validation involves code execution. 

In software testing, validation and verification are two ways of evaluating the quality of the software. These are two different approaches to assessing product quality. In other words, verification answers the question: “Do we build it right?” while validation answers the question: “Do we build the right thing?”

What are the different types of validation testing?

There are several different kinds of Validation Testing.

So, what are the types of validation testing? Types of validation testing include:

• Black box/functional validation — Checking how functions perform
• White box/structural validation — Checking code structure through code analysis and automated unit testing
• System validation — Checking how the app works in a system environment
• Smoke testing — Smoke testing is a quick-and-dirty test that the major functions of a piece of software work. It is performed on untested software, either new builds or major changes to existing builds, as a way to quickly reject obviously faulty software.
• Unit testing — Unit testing is the testing of individual units or components of software to determine if they are fit for use. A unit is the smallest testable component of any software. It normally has one or a few inputs and typically a single output.
• Beta/User Acceptance Testing (UAT) — This is performed by the end-user to ensure that the system meets their business requirements. Business requirements define what an application should do but not how it should be done.
• Operational Acceptance Testing (OAT) — The OAT test phase is performed at the end of the development project, but before the software is moved into production. This testing is usually performed by the customer and/or a third party on the production-like system.
• Regression testing — Regression validation testing is done to ensure that new changes haven’t introduced any defects in older parts of the software or affected existing functionality or features.

Validation testing types form a V-shaped testing pattern. This pattern includes different variations and testing activities:

• Unit Testing – This is a type of validation testing. The goal of unit testing is to find bugs in the product. At the same time, unit testing also significantly improves code quality and provides documentation.
• Integration testing -This is an important part of the validation model where the interaction between the various interfaces of the software are tested. After your developers have performed unit tests, integration testing will ensure that internal modules and components communicate as expected.
• System testing – System testing is done once the entire programming framework is prepared. This is a series of different tests whose chief purpose is to test the entire system. Considered as the black box testing category of software testing, system tests evaluate the end-to-end system specifications of the integrated software product.
• User acceptance testing – Also called beta testing or end-user testing, UAT is where your software is tested by the intended audience or business representative. This is one of the last phases of testing and involves using real-world scenarios to ensure the software is operating according to specifications.

There’s an almost endless list of ways you can test software for quality

If you’re just starting, you probably want to focus on tactics that will reduce the number and severity of software bugs, like prioritizing your efforts on basic and crucial functions, while also thinking like customers or end-users and keeping in mind that no matter how much testing you perform, you can’t guarantee a 100% bug-free application.

We all know the development world changes fast. But, if everyone on the team –Dev, QA, BA, PM, etc. — is committed to delivering a high-quality product, embracing testing to achieve product quality and reduce waste should be a shared goal.

Let’s take a look at some tools and techniques that everyone, from newbies to experienced testing professionals, can use to run validation tests.

What are some techniques and tools used in validation testing?

When you’re ready to do acceptance testing, you’ll find there are many tools that can be used as part of validation.

This is the part of your product development where you finally break out your software testing tools. You’ll also decide when to run automated tests and when to test manually. 

Of course, the trick is to select the “right tool for the job.”

To anyone familiar with software testing, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

There are different techniques and tools to implement validation testing. It is worth mentioning that these testing techniques can either be manual or automated, and also involve different parts of the application or platform. Furthermore, it can also be implemented on both the FrontEnd and BackEnd, and testing can also be automated or manual. The strategy that’ll be chosen depends on the business requirements, client specifications, resources and time availability.

In order to validate an application’s BackEnd, we can implement a Unit Test (an automated test that allows us to check one codes’ unit) or Integration Tests (automated tests that check the integration of different methods). As mentioned, the tools utilized will depend on the programming languages that were implemented on the BackEnd. For example: for JavaScript, we can run Jest or Mocha.

On the other hand, we can also test more complex flows (such as e2e) that simulate a real interaction between the BackEnd, whilst manually testing with Postman or other similar platforms or automating these interactions with different frameworks such as restAssure. Platforms such as the latter allow us to automate and simulate the requests made by the FrontEnd whilst automating tests with real data.

Thirdly, we can also carry out Validation Testing on the FrontEnd of an application, and, as well as it happens on the BackEnd, these tests could either be manual or automated. These tests simulate the real interaction users will have with a system. To automate said tests there’s a great variety of frameworks, which, again, choosing one will depend on the business, type of tests that will be performed, resources and time availability. 

If we want to automate mobile tests, other frameworks will be implemented in comparison to those tests carried out with a browser. Some of the frameworks that we most frequently work with in-browser testing are Selenium, Playwright and Nightwatch. On the other hand, to carry out mobile tests we use Appium, which allows us to test on both Android and iOS.

As we previously mentioned, validation testing could involve functional and non-functional requirements, which is why we oftentimes have to verify our systems’ times of response or the number of concurrent users to verify that we are actually meeting the technical requirements. This method is called performance testing, and we generally use Jmeter to implement these tests.

You can also use tools like Cucumber, Appium, Selenium, and HP Quality Center to perform validation tests and store the test results.

Here are some screenshots from a few different validation tools:

Now that you’ve seen some of the tools, let’s look at who should be involved in the validation process.

Who should perform the validation test?

There’s no hard-and-fast rule for who performs validation.

Depending on the project, many stakeholders such as Quality Assurance engineers, users, and developers may be involved.

Data from the Product Management Trends and Benchmarks Report 2020 shows 16.7% of product managers say their main job activities include product development-related work (e.g. backlogs, user stories, testing).

At December Labs, different team members play different roles in the testing process. Although the QA Engineer is the one in charge of quality management and performing tests, the entire QA team carries out validation testing processes. Generally speaking, the Unit Tests are implemented by a Developer, who carries out manual testing of a specific functionality to verify that it is actually functioning at its full capacity. The QA Engineer is responsible for a deeper study of the system, as well as carefully testing the whole application/platform, automating tools and carrying out manual tests that are more complex.

The automated tests are executed on a frequent basis, to assure and constantly verify that all the system’s functionalities are working in the way they are expected.

How do you perform a validation test?

So, maybe you’re ready to perform your own validation tests and wondering “What are the phases of the validation testing process?”

Here’s the answer in a nutshell:

• Define Requirements– During this phase, you’ll be planning the entire process beforehand and establishing the exact requirements that are needed.
• Team Selection– You’ll need to put together a competent, experienced and talented team. The team selection process is where you choose the individuals who will comprise your testing team. They should all have knowledge of what the product should be doing.
• Maintaining Documentation– Any form of testing requires extensive user specification documentation not to mention release cases, test cases, and manuals that have to be compiled. Decide who will be responsible for your project’s validation docs.
• Validation Report– The software is evaluated based on user specifications and a validation report is submitted. Then, your team will cross-check the evaluations and set a target date for the bug removal. The Final Report or Validation Report (VR) usually signals the end of the validation process. Upon approval of the final report, the software system will be released into production. 
• Incorporation of changes–Incorporate any necessary changes that were validated in the last stage.

The validation test can be carried out in different ways, depending on the requirements. That said, here’s an example of how it’s done:

• Decide on the business requirements for validation testing with input from stakeholders including the end-user.
• Prepare the validation plan and get it approved by the stakeholders involved.
• Once the validation plan is approved, your team will write the necessary test cases and send them for approval.
• Once the test cases are approved you start testing with the required software, environment and requirements as requested by the client.
• Upon approval of the deliverables, UAT testing is done by the client.
• After that, the software goes into production.

So, how do we run tests at December Labs? 

The strategy depends on a variety of factors, such as the client’s requirements, time availability and resources. It is definitely not the same sketching a testing strategy for a project in the long run, than for an MVP that needs to go into production in a short period of time (for example, a couple of weeks).

The goal is to implement quality practices from the beginning of a project, as a way to detect important issues early on, allowing us to quickly solve them without incurring extraordinary costs.

We firstly start by analyzing the design, understanding the business requirements and client needs. As the functionalities are implemented (they can be both from the BackEnd or FrontEnd), we begin to perform manual tests. As soon as the features don’t contain any fixable mistakes, we can start automating them, so that later on we can have greater coverage of the system in less time.

To execute manual testing, this will depend on whether or not we decide to carry out a traditional test (in which case we implement all cases) or an Agile Test that just implements an exploratory (manual) test. In the case we are working with a traditional test, we analyze all the requirements and begin by creating a guide of the system to aid the tester.

As all these tests are executed and in case we find any bugs or errors, we report them to the team, by establishing their priority to create a strategy to solve them.

For example, at December Labs we encourage the implementation of Agile Testing as a process. This way, we can automate everything that could be automated and complement those aspects that can’t with manual (exploratory) testing. This strategy allows us to implement Agile sprints in products that need to go into production in a tight timeframe.

With this strategy, we can have test cases that can be executed automatically when a new functionality is created or according to the execution strategy that the client decides to implement. Automated tests are integrated with CI platforms such as Jenkins and run in the cloud without the need for a particular resource.

These tests are complemented with exploratory testing, which performs tests that require human intelligence and cannot be automated. With this combination, the test coverage increases considerably, reducing the probability of finding new issues.

We are still in the process of growing, learning and improving in certain areas, especially with those projects that need to go into production very rapidly, which doesn’t allow us to thoroughly carry out validation testing. This is why having enough automated tests helps us to have a complete understanding and regression of the system, in case we don’t have enough time to perform manual testing.

From these experiences, we learned that a key aspect is to communicate to our team the need and vital importance of implementing a great testing strategy. By explaining and showing them how a new feature can alter other aspects of the system, we can show them the importance of investing time in QA testing, thus guaranteeing that we are building a great product that doesn’t only test isolated parts of the system, but rather the whole feature or functionalities.

Performing tests in a proper manner positively impact the quality of the product that’s being developed. We aim to create solutions for our clients that aren’t impacted by critical issues. Despite no application being bug-free, by implementing a good testing process we can partially guarantee that there are no critical issues and deliver a great user experience.

Oftentimes, providing QA testing directly impacts the project’s delivery time, since testing times must be considered when estimating all services. Nevertheless, QA testing can prevent clients from having to continually fix bugs or issues, since they can be all fixed before the product is launched.