SOFTWARE QA & TESTING: A CONGLOMERATION OF ARTISTRY AND TECHNICAL SKILLS

Quality has always been the paramount criterion to categorize the standard of any product manufactured. As the IT sector started emerging as one of the leading contributors to the world economy, the importance to infuse quality in the product also became necessary. That is how QUALITY ASSURANCE came into existence and is taken more seriously than ever before. In the modern era, the technology is growing, leaps and bounds, and industries are leaving no stone unturned in improving the quality of their developed software .Hence, the right approach to software QA & Testing is vital for any software to sustain in today's competitive world.

Experts around the world have their own opinion about the definition of testing but they all agree to the point that testing is an art. The more it is practiced, the more proficiency is gained. The beginners must realize the fact that there is no fixed pattern to learn QA Testing. Many of them often restrict the scope of testing by the conventional definition of software testing that says:

“Testing is the process of executing a program with the intent of finding errors.”

Manual testing is far more than just finding bugs. One needs to think in all the dimensions that the application or the software can react under different circumstances. One needs to develop the aptitude to see the hidden errors that may get exposed in any of the extreme situations that one could never think of. As there can be thousands of permutations and combinations possible for the input that can be fed by users around the world, thus, it involves a lot of critical thinking as well. As one talks about practice and it's affects on the mind, one should  point out that modern research is starting to show that the best performers are those that practice, not those with some natural ability that they are born with.

Automation Testing has also proved to become a reliable approach of QA & Testing and has attracted many learners for this approach of software testing. It reduces the human effort considerably, delivers more output in less time, ensures accuracy, and replaces the tedious and repetitive task with a unique script to run test cases and many more such advantages. It requires one to possess a very strong technical skill as one has to deal with various concepts of the programming language and needs to know about the effect of every single code written in the script. Script is not just written to run the test cases; they are very effective in doing the regression testing as well .The study says that around 90% of the automation done in the software industry is done for performing the regression tasks.

Head and Tail make up a coin and in the similar way Skill and Art make up Quality of high note in the field of Software Testing. Software Testing has no silver bullet and Software testing is no silver bullet.

Quality Assurance & testing not only verifies it also validates the product being developed. If QA Engineers get to know their responsibilities at an early phase with the skill that they have, then the process adds on one more entity i.e. Art. Being responsible, makes the QA Engineer articulate his tasks which is an art. After having articulated the tasks, being productive and smart at accomplishing the tasks at higher note of Quality is a Skill. Thus, in the field of Software Testing, Skill and Art mix like milk and honey.

Thus, Software QA & Testing can reach a level that is gratifying only if artistry and technicality are involved in the right proportion.