After your application is developed, it’s imperative that you have it tested. For larger projects, it’s better to have a QA tester work parallel to the developer and test modules as they are developed. Whether your application is large or small, testing can make or break its success. Releasing buggy software destroys user trust, and eventually you lose these users to a competitor. Instead of skipping this step, it’s important that you budget for a QA tester to improve your software’s visibility, trust and success.
What does a QA tester do?
QA testers do a number of reviews on your application. QA stands for “quality assurance,” so a QA person usually does more than just check your software for bugs. They also check the user experience and give feedback to the developer if something doesn’t seem right.
For instance, maybe a button or call-to-action is hard to see on a smaller screen. While this isn’t technically a “bug,” it’s a problem with the user experience and could cause you to lose some losers in the workflow. A QA person detects this problem and gives feedback to the developer to fix the button’s style or color to make it easier for the user to read.
Testers also check for any bugs or inconsistencies with workflow. This is done using automated scripts or manually. Most testers use both methods, but for large applications testing scripts are standard to ensure that all parts of your application can be tested within a reasonable amount of time.
Finally, a tester can make suggestions to help your application. As the owner, it’s difficult to understand UI and UX problems when you understand the way an application works. The developer can also be a poor choice for a tester, because they’ve coded the application and know how it works in detail. A tester acts as a new user, unfamiliar with the application or how it works, so they can find errors before your paying customers find them. This is a benefit for you because any of these minor issues are fixed prior to you releasing software that isn’t intuitive for your users.
Defining your testing project
Before you post your project, you need to understand what you’re looking for in a tester. You know that you need a QA tester, but you must describe your project to attract the right talent. For most small projects, this means the software is already developed and you need someone to go through each screen and process to test it for bugs and review the UI and UX.
If you have a larger project, you need a tester to work alongside the developer and test each module as it’s completed. Some development agencies have their own testing department, but you might want an independent agency or individual developer to work with each screen to ensure its quality.
It helps the QA tester if you give them access to review your software, if it’s a SaaS application or any documentation that you have that describes it. This will allow them to give you a timeline and cost estimate.
For larger projects, the QA tester can give you an estimate based on the size of the application and the amount of input boxes and processing pages. The best way to define your project is to write up documentation as a starter guide for your users. This guide is useful to your users, and it will help the QA tester go through your application and review its size and complexity.
For instance, you may have a simple calendar page that allows users to schedule events. This seems simple enough but how many options do you have? For each option and business rule, the QA tester must use manual and scripted testing to ensure that the application is bug-free.
Writing a QA tester job description for your project
Once your program is documented and you have a clear understanding of what you need, it’s time to write your job description. This is your chance to describe your project in a way that resonates with the right tester for your project. A tester will ask to see your software and will likely ask several additional questions once you shortlist several testers.
The following is a basic project description sample.
Title: We need a QA tester for our SaaS application
Description: Our developers have recently finished our SaaS application, and we need a QA tester to review the workflow, UI, and test for any bugs. Our application is about 50 screens, and it’s in the IT market. We need someone to ensure that users can download product, run the application on their server, and make payments without any errors. We would also like suggestions for any UX issues that you find.
We will provide documentation and a URL to QA testers that we would like to work with. We expect it will take a tester about 30 days to go through the entire application. We will give you an account with full access to review and learn it prior to testing.
Conclusion
A QA tester can greatly affect your software’s success, so it’s a process in the development cycle that you should never skip. They can find bugs that your developers and you never find, and they can improve your user workflow to make it more intuitive for your users. Overall, the benefits of budgeting a QA tester far outweigh the cost.
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