A few words about me…
I would like to quickly introduce myself: Amaury, 27 years old at the moment of writing this and bug hunter ???…
I am a former hotel professional who recently converted into a bug hunter to the delight of my colleagues and our customers. I studied & worked in the hotel industry for ten years, then one day I realized that this career no longer reflected my ideals. In September 2017, after bidding farewell to my old job, I joined Apptitude for an internship to discover the digital industry, its specialties, and its various dimensions.
I was able to discover the different roles within a digital agency: development, design, project management, sales and conception of digital products as well as the administration of the agency itself. All this was therefore fundamentally different from my daily life of the past ten years.
Subsequently, Apptitude offered me the opportunity to embark on the adventure as a Software Functional Tester. According to my colleagues, the attention to detail and the requirement for impeccable quality in my former field would prove useful in the quality assurance branch of the company (QA), especially since I already had basic knowledge in IT.
The software testing profession
Within a year at Apptitude, I discovered a new passion for the digital industry. Through my role as a software tester, I have had the opportunity to be integrated and to participate in the majority of projects in development.
Furthermore, I regularly exchange on issues with different profiles (designer, developer, marketing) which is a real boost for my learning curve and allows me to acquire new knowledge every day.
I have often been asked about the types of products I like to test and contrary to what you might think, I don’t have a favorite type of project, I am usually drawn to projects that are innovative through their usability or interface, and that would even make me question my own use of the Internet.
What is QA?
Software quality assurance or QA aims to ensure the quality of deliverables provided to our customers by constantly testing our products. In other words, to identify and report various bugs, functional problems and even spelling errors to the development or design team for review.
Quality Assurance at Apptitude
The primary objective of a functional test is to check whether the functionalities and contents comply with the product specifications defined during the conception phase, this is essentially related to:
Major functionalities
These are the main features of a deliverable and are generally the core elements in the use of a digital product. They are clearly defined and, at each test step, will be challenged to validate their reliability.
Basic usability
It’s the ability to navigate easily between various screens while avoiding complex interactions with its components.
The understanding, approach, and success of our products depend on the quality of end-user interactions. That’s why I constantly look for any path anomalies or design shortcomings that could affect the user’s experience.
Error management
Error management is used to verify the user interactions with the system, its errors and to indicate the correct procedure to follow. The purpose is to isolate non-compliant elements such as:
- Incorrect or missing features
- Interface errors or incorrect content layout
- Errors in the data structure or with the access to a remote database
- Software behavior errors
- Defective loading or reaction times
- Instance configuration errors:
– DEV (Development instance)
– UAT (“User acceptance Test”, Testing instance)
– PROD (Utilisateur final) - Spelling errors or inconsistent content
Its the core of the functional test to allow the validation of product functionality and error management to ensure optimal user experience and thus offer user-friendliness in accordance with our customers’ needs.