- According to you, why is quality assurance important?
- Could you state the significance of the bug triage?
- How well can you define the term quality?
- Tell me something about quality assurance and what is its significance?
- What are the phases in the defined cycle of quality assurance?
- What do you understand by the term bug control in the development of a product?
- What are the factors that should be given more importance in product development for assuring quality?
- What exactly do you understand by the term data-driven testing?
- What is quality control and how does it help businesses in keeping up the pace in this competition?
- Can you cite two examples of each activates related to quality control and quality assurance?
- Can you name a few practices for quality assurance which are best according to you?
- Name a few important functions of quality assurance.
- Name the tools that would be helpful for a tester while performing the quality testing/inspection?
- Can you name the two levels which are common in a quality certification?
- What are the main differences between software quality assurance, software quality control, and software testing?
- What is the right time to commence the quality assurance activities?
- Could you state the differences between a test plan and a use case?
- What are the differences between a test plan and test strategy?
- How does the severity of a bug differ from its priority?
- Can you explain a good test case?
- What are the data points you should add while writing a good test case?
- When do you decide to stop testing?
- Could you state the difference between functional and non-functional testing?
- How will you describe negative testing?
- How is negative testing different from positive testing?
- Interview tips
Before hitting the market, every product has to go through a rigorous process of checks and testing to outshine its competitors. This process is called Quality assurance.
The software industry is no exception.
Today, the demand for quality assurance (QA) and software quality assurance jobs have risen tremendously. So, for all those preparing for their software quality assurance and QA interview, keep reading!
Here in this blog we will cover;
- QA interview questions
- Software quality assurance interview questions
- Interview tips
QA Interview Questions
According to you, why is quality assurance important?
I believe that a business largely depends on the quality of products it puts out in the market. And since you want repeated transactions with the business, there can be no compromise on the quality front.
Also, I think quality assurance can ensure that the business doesn’t shell out lump sums repeatedly on campaigns such as advertisements.
Could you state the significance of the bug triage?
It is basically a process where all tracker issues are screened and prioritized. This helps to ensure that all the reported issues, bugs, improvements and feature requests are appropriately managed.
How well can you define the term quality?
The term quality cannot be bound by a fixed set of definition since its scope changes continuously. But quality, in general, is the green signal, implying that the product is fit to use.
This also ensures that there is nothing to worry about when it comes to using the product in the market.
Tell me something about quality assurance and what is its significance?
Quality assurance is an approach that ensures that the organization manufacturing the product is offering the best product in a similar range to the customers.
This also states that the product offered is superior as per the standards defined for the product manufactured.
What are the phases in the defined cycle of quality assurance?
There are 4 phases of the defined cycle of quality assurance, namely;
• Plan: It is imperative that a business pays proper attention to the planning and establishes the process related to the determination of the goals of a business/ its objectives, in order to deliver the best quality product.
• Do: It defines that development and testing of the processes, both are equally important.
• Check: Checking allows the organizations to ensure that the objectives are met.
• Act: States that extreme attention to detail is given to the implementation for continuous improvement.
What do you understand by the term bug control in the development of a product?
Bug control aims to develop an error-free product. The primary aim of the approach is to discover and rid the product of any and every error possible.
What are the factors that should be given more importance in product development for assuring quality?
It is of utmost importance that necessary attention is given to planning. Before beginning work, the actual plan should always be tested on a simulator. Also, it is extremely important that developers adopt the latest technology in order to avoid errors.
It is also necessary to pay attention to the factors upon which the product or service’s dependency is higher and how it can influence the same thing in the future. Adding to this, the only way to ensure the quality of a project is if it is supported by professionals with experience.
Moreover, the error-free outcomes can be achieved if close attention is paid while making the product compatible with multiple domains of technology.
Also, in order to define how well the product will perform in the real world can be established through testing.
What exactly do you understand by the term data-driven testing?
Data-driven testing is an automation testing framework, used to perform important tasks like testing the various input values on the program. The data files can directly receive these values.
What is quality control and how does it help businesses in keeping up the pace in this competition?
This is one of the common QA interview questions asked.
The approach to load a product with quality is called quality control. However, not necessarily must it have a direct relation with the associated factors in a product/service.
The main aim of quality control is to ensure that the customers’ major segment has been met in the product and it is error-free on arrival. Thus, quality control plays a major role in a business’ success.
Can you cite two examples of each activates related to Quality Control and Quality Assurance?
Quality Assurance- tool selection and process definition
Quality Control- Testing, walk-through, and inspection
Software quality assurance interview questions
Can you name a few practices for quality assurance which are best according to you?
A few of the Quality assurance practices are as follows;
• Considering automation testing to highly sensitive areas. This can provide a lot of strength to the workflow
• It is important to have a robust environment for testing
• Attention must be given while a release criterion is being selected
• Simulation of the final outcome
Name a few important functions of the quality assurance?
A few important functions of the Quality Assurance are improvement plans, validation, documentation, and technology transfers.
Name the tools that would be helpful for a tester while performing the quality testing/inspection?
OpenSTA, FireBug, YSlow, and Selenium are some of the best tools available in order to perform quality testing or inspection.
Can you name the two levels which are common in a quality certification?
Two levels that are common in quality certification are Optimization and Repeatable sequences.
What are the main differences between software quality assurance, software quality control, and software testing?
Software Quality Assurance: It basically encircles the entire development process, monitoring/improving the process and ensuring the adherence to agreed standards and procedures.
Software Quality Assurance also guarantees the discovery of bugs and the validation of their fixes.
Software Quality Control: It formulates the process of identifying bugs and sharing feedback of the same to improve the quality of test application. It is basically the testing team that carries out this process.
Software Testing: It is the process that begins with finding bugs to the final result of big fixes. It is also the responsibility to ensure that the product matches up to the customer criteria and procedure in its entirety.
What is the right time to commence the quality assurance activities?
Ideally, quality assurance activities should go parallel with the inception of the project. Doing this would ensure a timely start and sufficient time to set standards for quality achievement.
It plays a pivotal role since any delay in quality assurance roadmap will directly affect the time, cost and efforts for a project.
Could you state the differences between a test plan and a use case?
| TEST PLAN | USE CASE |
|---|---|
| The process comprises of the elements which form test strategies. | It basically standardizes the way a user reacts in a particular situation and also the system’s response to it. |
| It basically includes testing of the applications, scope of testing, quality assurance activities, roles, and deliverables. | The user case also helps in creating diagrams, flowcharts and the pre/post conditions. |
What are the differences between a test plan and test strategy?
| TEST STRATEGY | TEST PLAN |
|---|---|
| A high-level plan which is initiated by the software quality assurance manager is called Test strategy. It also captures the testing activities which are primary in nature. The test strategy is mainly for stakeholders with high influence and comparatively low interest in the project. | Details regarding the way testing should take place in the entire project lifecycle is called a Test plan. |
How does the severity of a bug differ from its priority?
Priority defines the urgency of fixing the bug. Whereas Severity depicts the impact of a defect on the application. It also determines the level of damage that could affect the data’s integrity within the system.
Can you explain a good test case?
A test case is basically an operational sequence that is controlled by constraints in order to determine whether an application, product or service is functioning correctly as per expectations or not.
Through the following example we can differentiate between a good and a bad test case;
Bad test case: Verify if the login works.
Good test case:
• After opening the login screen, enter the username and dummy password (12345678)
• Press the login button
• Verify if the user dashboard is visible in 2 seconds or less.
What are the data points you should add while writing a good test case?
In order to write a good test, these following qualities should be considered;
• Test case ID
• Test description
• Priority
• Severity
• Environment
• Product version
• Steps required
• Expected output
• Actual output
When do you decide to stop testing?
The ballpark estimates of the testing cycles are covered by the test plans. However, the applications are complex and it’s not possible to predict the exact time of testing completion.
But below are a few indicators for stopping or halting the testing procedure;
• Deadlines (Release or Testing timelines)
• Completing a test case with the expected pass percentage
• Testing cost overruns
• The desired coverage of code/functionality/requirements is attained
• If the defect discovery rate falls below the threshold
Could you state the difference between functional and non-functional testing?
| FUNCTIONAL TESTING | NON-FUNCTIONAL TESTING |
|---|---|
| Functional Testing not only takes the onus of the validation of features in an application but also ensures that it is behaving in a manner expected of it. | Whereas, the Non-functional Testing majorly focusses on the application’s load, performance and stress. |
| It also affirms that the application meets the requirement of customers | In this, the data is gathered by quality assurance and it then assesses and finds the benchmark value. |
| Before exiting the functional testing, every requirement has related test cases where each one of the test cases must pass | This data, at times, is critical in relation to the release of approvals. |
How will you describe negative testing?
The approach to finding the way a system behaves with invalid inputs is called Negative Testing. The major responsibility of Negative Testing is to ensure that the application projects the correct error codes or messages.
Also, adding on, it makes sure that feeding of invalid data does not crash the system.
How is negative testing different from positive testing?
Positive Testing ensures that the system works as per expectation. On the other hand, Negative Testing makes sure that the system functions even in the hands of a novice.
Apart from these QA interview questions, here are few interview tips to help you bag your next big quality assurance interview.
Interview tips
- Always arrive 15 minutes earlier.
- Carry enough copies of your resume.
- Always arrive properly groomed
- Prepare questions to ask your interviewer
- Practice your answers to the common interview questions.
