Software Quality Assurance (also abbre­viated as SQA), can be defined as a systematic process which ensures that the developed software meets and complies with the standardized quality speci­fi­ca­tions. It keenly checks the adherence to the software product standards, proce­dures and processes all throughout the software development life cycle and also the test cycle. The evalu­ation is done through product evalu­ation, process monitoring, project management, and more.

Software quality assurance mainly focuses on elimi­nating the bugs, enhancing perfor­mance, improving appli­cation security, improving perfor­mance tuning, protecting data and finding minimum hardware require­ments. It encom­passes the whole of software development process, including processes like coding, require­ments defin­ition, testing, software design, source code control, product integration, code reviews, release management, and software config­u­ration management. SQA is typically organized into goals, abilities, commit­ments, measure­ments, activ­ities, and verifications.

 

SQA practices are usually imple­mented in many types of software development, regardless of the type of under­lying software development models being used. It incor­po­rates and also imple­ments various software testing method­ologies. Instead of checking for software quality after completion, it processes the tests for quality in each single phase of the development cycle untill the software is fully complete. With SQA, the software development process will only move into the next step when the current phase fully complies with the required quality standards.

The two main areas of focus include functional quality assurance and struc­tural quality assurance.
• Functional Quality Assurance
This shows just how well a software product conforms to or complies with the basic design, based on the functional requirements.
• Struc­tural Quality Assurance
The struc­tural quality of a software product is usually deter­mined by keen analysis of the software’s source code and inner structure. This reflects just how well a project meets the non-functional require­ments like security, usability and acces­si­bility, which helps properly deliver functional requirements.

Struc­tural quality assurance is done so as to check the compliance of a product with the set software archi­tecture speci­fi­ca­tions. It’s done by the project developer. On the other hand, functional quality assurance is about checking the overall function­ality compliance with the set requirement speci­fi­ca­tions, and is normally measured through software product testing.

Basically, the main reason of involving SQA in the software product development process is to ensure that the final product meets the required speci­fi­ca­tions, and complies with the set standards. It ensures the development of a high quality software. A quality assurance system can actually increase a company’s credi­bility and customer confi­dence, improve the work processes, increase efficiency, and enable a company to compete with the others much better.

Knowing that the quality of the software you have has met the required standards is essential. Studies have revealed that many instal­la­tions are not always done right for the first time; this normally results in damages and repair expenses. You can actually avoid this by contracting a profes­sional software testing company which will profes­sionally test your software, and give the software quality assurance. The SQA company will also thoroughly check your website for compliance with the required speci­fi­ca­tions, and give you a detailed report about out the findings. Getting a SQA test done before going live with your website will greatly help you avoid plugging into loopholes, which could lead to massive losses.