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By Harry Robinson•28th November 2024
When it comes to website development, ensuring that your site runs smoothly is essential for a positive user experience and business success. This is where Quality Assurance (QA) comes in.
QA helps identify and fix issues before your site goes live, making sure everything from functionality to design works perfectly. However, with numerous technical terms involved, it can be overwhelming to understand where to start.
In this blog post, we’ll break down some of the most essential website QA terms that every developer and business owner should understand. Whether you’re new to QA or looking to sharpen your knowledge, these terms will help you confidently navigate the process.
From "bug tracking" to "regression testing," we’ll explain what each term means and why it matters, ensuring that your website is fully optimised and ready for users. Let's discuss the key QA terms you need to know.
Smoke testing is a quick and basic test to check if the core features of your website are working properly if it’s newly built or updated. It’s like checking if the “engine” of your website is running smoothly before diving into detailed testing.
During smoke testing, key functions like navigation, forms, and login are tested to ensure they don’t have any major issues. If your site passes smoke testing, it’s safe to proceed with more in-depth testing. If it fails, the bigger problems will need to be fixed first before you continue with further QA.
Bug tracking is the process of identifying, recording, and managing issues or “bugs” found during website testing. When a bug is discovered, it’ll need to be logged in a tracking system like our QA tool, with details like the problem description, severity, and steps to address it.
Our QA tool’s task management board can also keep a record of the bug’s status, from discovery to resolution. This will help your developers prioritise which bugs to fix first before the bugs are retested to ensure they’re resolved.
Effective bug tracking ensures that all issues are addressed and that nothing slips through the cracks, leading to a smoother, error-free website launch. It’s an essential part of maintaining high-quality standards.
To make this process more convenient, our QA tool also allows you to take screenshots and screen recordings of bugs, so you can provide clearer feedback to your web developers. Get your free trial today.
Regression testing is another one of the commonly used QA terms you need to know. It’s the process of testing a website after changes, updates, or bug fixes to ensure that new code hasn’t broken any existing features.
After developers make adjustments, they’ll need to check if the changes affect your website’s current functionality. This type of testing helps catch unexpected issues that could be caused by modifications.
Running regression tests allows developers to ensure that your website continues to work as expected, without introducing new problems. It’s key to preventing disruptions after any updates or enhancements to the site.
Performance testing checks how well your website performs under different conditions, such as heavy traffic or large data loads. It focuses on measuring the site’s speed, responsiveness, and stability to ensure a smooth user experience, especially for users on slower networks or devices.
If you're running an e-commerce site or any platform with high user traffic, performance testing can help you identify potential bottlenecks before they become problems.
By simulating real-world usage, it ensures your site can handle the expected number of visitors without crashing, providing a reliable and fast experience for every user.
User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is also one of the QA terms you need to know. It’s the final step in the QA process, where the website is tested by real users to ensure it meets their needs and expectations.
During UAT, users will interact with your site as they normally would, checking for any issues or improvements that need to be made. This phase helps ensure your website functions properly in a real-world environment.
UAT focuses on user experience, ease of use, and functionality. If everything looks good, UAT approval means your site is ready to launch. It’s an important test before going live.
Test automation involves using software tools to automatically run tests on your website, rather than doing it manually. This helps you save time, especially when running repetitive tests like checking links, forms, or user flows.
Automated tests can quickly catch issues across different devices and browsers, ensuring consistency and faster results. Once it’s set up, test automation can be run anytime, making it easier to detect bugs early in the development process.
This testing process is particularly useful for large websites or projects with frequent updates, as it increases efficiency while ensuring high standards in terms of quality. With that said, automatic testing lacks a human perspective and can be more expensive than manual testing.
These are just some of the QA terms you need to know. If you want to learn more about how you can improve your QA processes, consider QualityHive.
QualityHive is a solution that helps simplify feedback, quality assurance (QA), and web development processes for designers, developers, and agencies.
With our tool, you can track bugs, submit and receive feedback, and collaborate easily through features like instant screenshots, video recordings, and a Kanban board for task management.
Our platform captures detailed browser and device information, allowing your team to quickly address issues, reduce errors, and be more productive without using spreadsheets. It’s a simplified way to manage website feedback and action various tasks to keep your project on track.
To save hours of development time for each project, contact us or book a free trial today.
