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Quality assurance and testing are crucial aspects of development but are often one of the most ignored stages in the development cycle of various mobile and web applications. Testing and quality assurance should be taken as a priority as it helps to make a detailed check of the app development. It usually assesses user stories to find security flaws to make sure that the end user of the application is able to enjoy a great experience without any vulnerabilities or bugs.
Most organizations have some key performance indicators to ensure the effectiveness of testing and QA processes in the app development cycle. There are a multitude of factors that are taken into account while verifying the performance. In simple terms, these processes must not be underestimated if you want to eliminate defects. To survive in a marketplace with huge competition and continuous involvement, it is imperative for organizations to make the route to success.
So here, we will check out a list of the top KPIs which need to be analyzed by the quality analyst to improve performance, mitigate risks and offer a better user experience.
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What do you mean by KPI in application development?
Key Performance Indicators or KPIs are generally measured to check the progress made by the business toward its goal. It gives us an insight into how the business has been performing based on the set objectives. When it comes to app development, Key Performance Indicators define the purposes of a product and evaluate the vital attributes of the testing process and app development.
You must know that a single KPI is not capable of evaluating the overall product. Generally, the company makes use of continuous test analytics tools to get accurate reports of constant analysis. However, it is crucial for QA professionals to understand the meaning of KPIs and metrics to ensure achieving the set goals.
Most common QA metrics and KPIs to measure:
Test case efficiency:
Test case efficiency is one of the metrics that can be helpful for measuring the effects made on app testing and its effectiveness in different testing phases. In order to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of an application test case, there is a need to fulfill different standards. These include accurate test data, correctly identifying the defects in test cases, and clear results of test cases.
Importance: In case the application has successfully passed the testing phase, it does not guarantee that the application is error-free or made of high-quality. With clear test cases, organizations can stay assured of testing for the right things to make sure to identify unexpected behavior and problems.
Tests executed:
Test execution KPI is another metric that counts the total test cases running on the application. This figure generally incorporates different kinds of mobile app tests, including integration tests, regression tests, unit tests, and much more. It combines both automated and manual tests.
Importance: It is vital to track the total test executed to find out the testing team’s productivity. The overall tests executed gives an example of velocity KPI that measures how businesses and teams can work effectively to reach their set objectives.
Defect density:
Defect density is another KPI measuring the total number of errors or bugs present within the application. Every analyst requires using a formula for calculating the total defect density within an application. In order to calculate the defect density, you need to divide the total defects by the app module size or the total number of code lines.
Importance: Defect density is considered one of the most important metrics, as it can be helpful for businesses to evaluate the quality and performance of the app maintained by the development team. Using defect density KPI can be beneficial for organizations to understand the best time to release an application or determine when the application passes the alpha or beta stage.
Defect resolution time:
Defect resolution time is another KPI mainly used by the quality assurance teams. It will initially keep track of the time required by the testing team to identify issues present in the application. Once it tracks the time, it will then find out how long the development team needs to resolve the problems after identifying them.
Importance: It is essential to monitor the defect resolution time as it can be helpful to evaluate the effort provided by the team to assess mobile app defects. With lower defect resolution time, an organization can quickly identify and resolve defects in the application. This KPI can also be measured on a business-wide basis for individuals to understand the productivity and efficiency of different members within the testing team.
Time to test:
Time to test is another important KPI taken into consideration by quality assurance when it comes to app development. It generally measures the time an organization takes from testing new features within the application to completing them. To be more precise, this KPI calculates the time developers and testers generally take to evaluate features and fix errors that were identified while testing.
Importance: Utilizing time to test KPI is crucial as it can be helpful for organizations to make quality measurements and find the app tester’s efficiency. This particular metric has efficiency in identifying complicated app features as well. When it takes longer to test, it indicates the intricate design within the segment.
Unresolved vulnerabilities:
Another important KPI is one that talks about unresolved vulnerability, which counts the total number of holes, patched flaws, and loopholes present currently within the application. There are certain scenarios where businesses require splitting up the figure depending on the severity level of the vulnerability. It is generally measured in critical, moderate, or mild.
Importance: It is highly crucial to track security vulnerabilities. It is considered one of the most critical practices by the app development team. This KPI can help businesses to gauge quantity and severity. It is also possible to combine this metric with other KPIs like time to resolution, as it offers a better understanding of the application security efforts made by the team.
Automated tests:
An automated test is another KPI that simply measures the total percentage or number of automated test cases present in the testing suite. When you want to measure in terms of percentage, the KPI is calculated by dividing automated tests by total test cases. The total test cases include both manual and automated tests.
Importance: Manual testing is still considered necessary for most organizations when it comes to usability testing, as automated testing will not be able to perform it. However, a significant part of the app testing is automated. Since automation offers efficient and faster results compared to manual testing, increasing automated testing can help improve the productivity of the team and give more time for manual testing.
Quality ratio:
Another important KPI is a quality ratio that measures the success level or percentage while running app testing, depending on the failure or success rate of test execution. It has a very simple formula where the test analyst requires dividing successful test cases executed by the total number of test cases multiplied by 100. This will help to get the total quality ratio.
Importance: Quality ratio can be beneficial for testing managers along with other decision-makers to understand the testing status. When the quality ratio goes below the different testing runs, it shows that the recent changes or features might have a damaging effect on the app.
Conclusion:
When it comes to ensuring the quality and efficiency of an application, continuous test analytics tools can be an effective inclusion. However, it is crucial for the testing teams to have knowledge about the significant KPIs or SEO Trends and their importance in the app development life-cycle. Hopefully, these key performance indicators will become helpful for you to understand the performance and decide.
