During many of my job interviews I was getting such question: what is quality in software development?

I really like Tom DeMarco answer here:

a product's (software) quality is a function of how much it changes the world for the better

lovely isn't it? But how are we able to measure that our app is changing the world?

That is a very hard question, especially when we are looking at it from general perspective. That is why we have to narrow group of end users for which we want to create our software. Wait, what? I want to create software for everyone! Why should I create an app for only few people? Answer here is simple: to make it good and gather only positive opinions.

Different groups of people will experience the quality of the same software differently. Also different groups of people will expect different features from the application, features adjusted more to they needs. We are unable to make everyone happy. And software quality purpose is not to make everyone happy. When we will separate a group of end users for which we want to create software and if we will listen them carefully and provide them software with features that will make their life easier or more fun then we can say that we are changing that people world for the better. And quality assurance role is to assure that this is being done. So it is not only writing test cases, checking that the acceptance criteria are met and writing automated tests, but most importantly it is about make sure that the acceptance criteria brings values for the end users.

So to the finale. In my opinion the easiest definition of Quality is:

Quality of software consist those features which meet the need of chosen group of customers and thereby provide product satisfaction

Brought to you proudly by the =^•ꞈ•^= and the ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

Prev	Next