58 min
Quality Assurance Testing Software Sessions
-
- Education
Michael Ashburne and Maxwell Huffman are QA Managers at Aspiritech.
This episode originally aired on Software Engineering Radio.
Related Links:
AspiritechSection 508 Test for AccessibilityANDI Accessibility Testing ToolWindows Hardware Compatibility ProgramAudio over Bluetooth
Transcript
You can help edit this transcript on GitHub.
Jeremy: [00:00:00] Today I'm joined by Maxwell, Huffman and Michael Ashburn. They're both QA managers at Aspiritech. I'm going to start with defining quality assurance. Could one of you start by explaining what it is?
Maxwell: [00:00:15] So when I first joined Aspiritech, I was kind of curious about that as well. One of the main things that we do at Aspiritech besides quality assurance is we also, give meaningful employment to individuals on the autism spectrum. I myself am on the autism spectrum and that's what, initially attracted me to the company.quality assurance in a nutshell is making sure that, products and software is not defective. That it functions the way it was intended to function.
Jeremy: [00:00:47] how would somebody know when they've, when they've met that goal?
Michael: [00:00:50] It all depends on the client's objectives. I guess. quality assurance testing is always about trying to mitigate risk. There's only so much testing that is realistic to do, you know, you could test forever and never release your product and that's not good for business. It's really about, you know, balancing, like how likely is it that the customer is going to encounter defect X, how much time and energy would be required to, to fix it?
Overall company reputation, impact, there's all sorts of different metrics. Uh, and every, every customer is unique really they, they get to set the pace,
Maxwell: [00:01:30] does the product work well? is the user experience frustrating or not? that's always a bar that I look for. One of the main things that we review in the different defects that we find is customer impact.
and how much of this is going to frustrate the customers. And when we're going through that analysis, is this cost effective or not. The client they'll determine it's worth, the cost of the, uh, quality assurance and of the fix of the software to make sure that that customer experience is smooth.
Jeremy: [00:02:03] When you talk to, to software developers, now, a lot of them are familiar with things like they need to test their code right. They have things like unit tests and integration tests that they're running regularly. where does quality assurance fit in with that? Like, is that considered a part of quality assurance is quality assurance something different?
Michael: [00:02:24] we try to partner with our clients, because the goal is the same, right. It's to release a quality product that's as free of defects, as, you know, as possible.
We have multiple clients that will let us know these are clients typically that we've worked with for a long time that have sort of established a rhythm. they'll let us know when they've got a new product in the pipeline and as soon as they have available, Uh, software requirements, documentations specs, user guides, that kind of thing.They'll provide that to us, to be able to then plan. Okay. You know, what are these new features? Uh, what defects have been repaired since the last build or, you know, it all depends on what the actual product is. And we start preparing tests even before there may be, uh, A version of the software to test, you know, now that's more of a, what they call a waterfall approach where it's kind of a back and forth where, you know, the client preps the software, we test the software.
If there's something amiss, the client makes changes. Then they give us a new build. but we just as well, we work in, uh, iterative design or agile is a popular term, of course, where. We have embedded testers, that are, you know, on a daily basis, interacting with, uh, client developers to address, you know, to, to verify certain parts
Michael Ashburne and Maxwell Huffman are QA Managers at Aspiritech.
This episode originally aired on Software Engineering Radio.
Related Links:
AspiritechSection 508 Test for AccessibilityANDI Accessibility Testing ToolWindows Hardware Compatibility ProgramAudio over Bluetooth
Transcript
You can help edit this transcript on GitHub.
Jeremy: [00:00:00] Today I'm joined by Maxwell, Huffman and Michael Ashburn. They're both QA managers at Aspiritech. I'm going to start with defining quality assurance. Could one of you start by explaining what it is?
Maxwell: [00:00:15] So when I first joined Aspiritech, I was kind of curious about that as well. One of the main things that we do at Aspiritech besides quality assurance is we also, give meaningful employment to individuals on the autism spectrum. I myself am on the autism spectrum and that's what, initially attracted me to the company.quality assurance in a nutshell is making sure that, products and software is not defective. That it functions the way it was intended to function.
Jeremy: [00:00:47] how would somebody know when they've, when they've met that goal?
Michael: [00:00:50] It all depends on the client's objectives. I guess. quality assurance testing is always about trying to mitigate risk. There's only so much testing that is realistic to do, you know, you could test forever and never release your product and that's not good for business. It's really about, you know, balancing, like how likely is it that the customer is going to encounter defect X, how much time and energy would be required to, to fix it?
Overall company reputation, impact, there's all sorts of different metrics. Uh, and every, every customer is unique really they, they get to set the pace,
Maxwell: [00:01:30] does the product work well? is the user experience frustrating or not? that's always a bar that I look for. One of the main things that we review in the different defects that we find is customer impact.
and how much of this is going to frustrate the customers. And when we're going through that analysis, is this cost effective or not. The client they'll determine it's worth, the cost of the, uh, quality assurance and of the fix of the software to make sure that that customer experience is smooth.
Jeremy: [00:02:03] When you talk to, to software developers, now, a lot of them are familiar with things like they need to test their code right. They have things like unit tests and integration tests that they're running regularly. where does quality assurance fit in with that? Like, is that considered a part of quality assurance is quality assurance something different?
Michael: [00:02:24] we try to partner with our clients, because the goal is the same, right. It's to release a quality product that's as free of defects, as, you know, as possible.
We have multiple clients that will let us know these are clients typically that we've worked with for a long time that have sort of established a rhythm. they'll let us know when they've got a new product in the pipeline and as soon as they have available, Uh, software requirements, documentations specs, user guides, that kind of thing.They'll provide that to us, to be able to then plan. Okay. You know, what are these new features? Uh, what defects have been repaired since the last build or, you know, it all depends on what the actual product is. And we start preparing tests even before there may be, uh, A version of the software to test, you know, now that's more of a, what they call a waterfall approach where it's kind of a back and forth where, you know, the client preps the software, we test the software.
If there's something amiss, the client makes changes. Then they give us a new build. but we just as well, we work in, uh, iterative design or agile is a popular term, of course, where. We have embedded testers, that are, you know, on a daily basis, interacting with, uh, client developers to address, you know, to, to verify certain parts
58 min