Why Is Quality Assurance Important For Building Software

When it comes to software development, one of the most important thing is to understand that your focus should be on building the right product while also building the product the right way. There are so many failed startups because they focused more on building the product the right way but didn’t carefully think if their product solves any problem. More importantly would someone be willing to pay for such solution. Ideally, you’d want both – build the right product in the right way. But let’s not forget, we need to make it right first, then we need to make it pretty.

In this blog post, we’ll dive deep into both concepts, explore how they’re interconnected, and discuss why Quality Assurance is important in this narrative. Remember that the QA is not only about finding bugs but also about finding unnatural flows, bad design and usability issues. That is why we usually conduct Usability testing and Functional testing in software development process.

Building the Right Software: Solving the Right Problem

When we talk about “building the right software,” we’re essentially asking: Are we solving the right problem? Many QA engineers would argue that asking this question is not their job. OK, what if we move to small scale level. If we talk about a feature that you as a QA engineer on a project see that it’s not going to help the end users in a way they might expected it? Maybe the solution is too complex to use, maybe it is crowded with features no one actually needs.

Imagine you’re building a fitness app. If your audience just wants a step tracker, but you’ve added meal planning, calorie counting, and meditation features, congratulations, you’ve overcomplicated their lives. Sure, your app is full of features, but is it what users actually want?

How to Help With Building the Right Software:

Before you start testing you should:

Understand User Needs
Start with solid research. Get to know the end user of the software. Try to put yourself in their shoes. What are their pain points? What problems are you trying to solve?
Define Clear Requirements
Collaborate with stakeholders to set goals. Clear communication ensures everyone’s on the same page about what success looks like. I often emphasize communication and collaboration in my articles with a valid reason. Asking questions is a must for a good QA Engineer.
Prioritize Features
Not all features are created equal. Be vocal about your feeling what needs to be done first. Focus on what delivers the most value first. Think of this as the 80/20 rule—80% of the value often comes from 20% of the features.
Continuous Validation
Iteratively test your ideas through prototyping, MVPs (minimum viable products), and beta releases. You should do the testing and check if the feeling is right. When you are ready you can release to a limited number of users and gather feedback. Are you still on track with what users need?

Building the Software Right: Getting It Done Well

Now let’s flip the coin. Building the software right means following the best practices, methodologies, and principles to create high-quality software. Think clean code, scalability, security, and reliability.

It’s about craftsmanship—because what’s the point of delivering the “right” software if it’s riddled with bugs, crashes every five minutes, or falls apart when 1,000 users show up? This is where most QA engineers find themselves comfortable to work although we are still in software planning and design phases.

Best Practices for Building the Software Right:

Adopt agile and DevOps
Agile is again all about collaboration. If you plan to solve issues faster and deliver faster you need to communicate effectively with your teammates. Consider implementing Shift Left and Shift Right approaches. What you also need to adopt is a mindset that you should automate the processes to save time. Creation of pipelines for Continuous Delivery starts before development.
Follow Design and Development Standards
Challenging design issues is important. Design is what appeals the users to your software. Design makes it easy to use. Development standards make the software scalable and maintainable.
Automate Where Possible
Automation in testing, deployment, and monitoring saves time and ensures consistency. Plan carefully what tests would you automate. Make sure you don’t overdo it.
Focus on Scalability
Think about the future. Your software should be able to handle growth—more users, more data, more complexity. Design the tests in such way to push the limits of the software in each iteration of development.

It Is The Testing Time

This is where QA engineers perform the work we are known for. This part of the article explains why is quality assurance important. QA plays a vital role in both building the right software and building the software right. Let’s break this down.

QA Ensures You’re Building the Right Software:

Validating Requirements: Everything we did in design phase is now put to a test. We are testing if the actual implementation feels as good as the requirement. Have we made any mistakes in the design phase?
User Acceptance Testing (UAT): This is another way of testing of our understanding of how the real users use our software. It is a great chance to calibrate our business logic knowledge.

QA Ensures You’re Building the Software Right:

Bug Detection: No need to explain anything here.
Performance Testing: As already mentioned, we are thinking about the future. We need to make sure that the software will work as expected when the user base enlarges.
Regression Testing: Exploratory testing of features must be conducted from time to time to make sure we didn’t introduce new bugs in the existing features.

Why Cutting Corners on QA is a Terrible Idea

Skipping QA is like skipping the taste test before serving a five-course meal. Here’s what can go wrong:

Higher Costs Later
Fixing bugs post-launch is exponentially more expensive than catching them during development.
Loss of Trust
A buggy product damages your brand reputation. Users are less forgiving when their trust is broken.
Missed Opportunities
Without proper QA, you risk building something no one wants—or something no one can use.

The Perfect Recipe: How to Balance Both Approaches

We’ve seen why is the quality assurance important for software development. So how do you strike the right balance between building the right software and building it the right way? Here’s successful companies do it:

1. Start with Quality from Day One

Make QA an integral part of the development process, not an afterthought. This is where practices like Shift Left Testing come into play—start testing early, right at the requirement and design phases.

2. Embrace Agile Testing

Agile testing promotes continuous testing throughout the development lifecycle. This ensures both user needs and technical quality are addressed iteratively.

3. Invest in QA Automation

Automation isn’t just trendy—it’s effective. Automate repetitive tasks like regression and performance testing to free up time for exploratory and creative testing.

4. Collaborate Across Teams

Foster a culture of collaboration between developers, testers, and stakeholders. Clear communication is essential to align goals and expectations.

5. Measure What Matters

Find the metrics that provide you a high quality data for your project. People usually use the same metrics for every project and every company without taking size in regard. The metrics you choose should be tailored to the project.

The Final Takeaway: QA is Non-Negotiable

Building the right software ensures you’re solving the right problem. Building the software right ensures your solution is high-quality and reliable. Quality assurance is important because neither approach can stand on its own without quality assurance.

QA is the glue that holds everything together. It’s the process that ensures your software is user-focused, bug-free, and built to last. In a world where competition is fierce and user expectations are sky-high, QA isn’t just an optional step – it’s your competitive edge.