Way to becoming a QA specialist
Unwittingly we test something every day. Clothes, for example, does it fit you or not, or food in restaurant, which one is more tasty. The same situation with software. Users choose for themselves so they prefer qualitative product. Testing is not only search for mismatching between real and expected results, as we used to think, but also quality control.
As the end product has to have high quality in process of software development the testing happen to be, the other way it won't have users. The better the testing the better the product quality. The better the quality the more users it has.
There's no ideal products - bugs and some mismatches are always happen. It needs to minimize them before release, and if you can't debug something try to hide it from user.
What do you need to start? The most important in the beginning of QA career is interest and willingness at work. The advantages for the career are:
- The tестирование dot com - the book by Roman Savin
- You're experienced phone and PC user
- You're familiar with version control system (Git, for ex), IDE as Android Studio, Xcode, WebStorm, etc. It will be helpful in future work.
The other you'll find in work process.
The majority number of QA specialists begin their career with manual testing. They just fulfil the plan (list of bugs that was done by experienced developer) and write the result. Step by step QA specialist make this list by themselves.
Automated testing is also important. Firstly, it saves time. During this process QA specialist can do other crucial activities. But you need to remember that autotest testing exact functionality and can miss some mismatches (bugs). Manually you can find other bugs and errors and show them developers. And this is so important as each fixed bug increase the quality index.
QA specialist has to understand the project without documentation. It's also important to be able to work in a team: sometimes you need to clarify something with designer or developer. Each team member is important on each project stage. QA specialist has to be willing at quality increasing for design and functionality as well.
It's important to pay attention to little things.
Sometimes user pays attention to:
- The ability to tap view to dismiss keyboard
- Fast reaction after pushing buttons
- The notifications of low level signal
If it won't be done user can get nervous and some time later can stop use product. That's lack of user friendly interface, testing is also matters here. So the negligence in testing leads to losing users, it means that testing has to be done thoroughly.
Firstly, QA specialist has to think like user. And there're no pitfalls, but if there are just show the way to get rid of it. There's no limit to perfection but you need to aim it.
Each person chooses their own way, what would you choose?
Thanks for reading!