Digital technology has
emerged as a disruptor for enterprises, governments, organizations, and
entities the world over. It is no longer the ‘add on’ but the much needed
‘core’ to remain visible, responsive, successful, and competitive. If earlier,
customers used to be at the wrong end of the stick for businesses, today,
digital has given them a user-friendly interface to get their point across.
Further, with digital technologies giving customers the power to be choosy with
their brands, products, or services, businesses are in a bind. They can no
longer ignore the voice of the customer and have to design their products or
services as per their customers’ preferences. In the whole scheme of things,
quality has become the differentiator for businesses to remain competitive. It
is the quality of products or services that ultimately determines whether
customers stick with the specific product or service or move onto others.
Digital technologies have led
businesses to go for a paradigm shift in their strategies. So, they not only
have to deliver superior quality products at a faster rate but need to keep
them updated as per the changing times and/or technologies. No wonder, they
rely on Agile and DevOps methodologies to deliver superior quality products in
double-quick time. To meet the fast-changing customer expectations, businesses
adopt digital transformation with digital
quality engineering at the core. To understand more about software quality
engineering, one needs to know about customers’ changing
preferences. Yes, today’s customers are no longer satisfied with a particular
brand or product unlike the ones in the earlier generation. Armed with a
plethora of choices, the customers of today want high-quality apps that can be
used across devices and platforms. Here high-quality apps would mean
fast-loading, feature-rich, secure, scalable, responsive, functional, and
navigable. Thus, instead of testing apps or builds on a range of devices and
platforms post-development, it makes sense to incorporate quality in the app
development lifecycle.
If digital transformation is about
optimizing the value chain, improving productivity, reducing defects, enhancing
efficiency and security, and ensuring the quick release of builds, then digital quality engineering is the
enabler. It allows organizations to streamline their value chain and ensure the
development of a functional product.
Role of quality engineering in advancing the cause of
digital transformation
With quality no longer
remaining an ‘afterthought’ in the production cycle, it needs to be integrated
with every phase of development. This ensures early identification and fixing
of glitches in the build before passing it to the next stage.
# Better integration: QE services call for better collaboration and integration between
teams, especially development and operations, in releasing quality builds
within faster turnarounds.
# Better test automation: A quality
engineering approach involves the use of test automation to validate
voluminous lines of code as per their expectations. The QE specialists should
be able to write pieces of code for better integration with tools and
frameworks. However, QE driven test automation is not a silver bullet to
‘correct’ every flaw in the code but needs a better choice of test cases and
test areas. These include the following:
·
Repetitive
tests that are susceptible to manual errors
·
Optimizing
test cases and improving test automation by incorporating AI
·
Tests
that need virtualization of data sets due to the latter’s unavailability. The
unavailability could be due to the challenges of geography, demography, or
complexity
·
Tests
to be conducted across multiple devices, platforms, and networks
·
Frequently
used features or functionalities that may be risky
·
Tests
that are difficult to be performed manually
# Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Behavior-Driven
Development (BDD): The two
approaches envisage the conduct of unit test for the code before initiating any
further tests. Both TDD and BDD approaches call for better collaboration among quality engineering services,
developers, and business stakeholders. This commonality of approach is to
ensure the final outcome is in line with the avowed business objectives. The software quality engineering team
ensures quality through API validation when pitted against UI-driven test
cases.
# Performance metrics aligned to customer experience: Digital
quality engineering
ensures the customer experience to be top-notch across device platforms. It
does so by setting up and measuring the performance metrics as per
expectations. This enforces trust, increases accessibility and responsiveness,
improves the omnichannel experience, and enhances brand image.
Conclusion
The highly competitive world
of online business requires enterprises to come up with quality products
delivering great customer experiences in short turnarounds. It is only through
a quality engineering approach
that glitches can be fixed early, testing can be conducted across device
platforms and the final deliverable is made to align with customer preferences
and business objectives.
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