For a digital product to be successful in the market, it’s not enough to simply develop the right features – they must also function reliably. Unsurprisingly, quality is a critical factor for the success of a digital product.
Imagine you haven't only a great idea but also the right budget, a skilled development team, and the project is right on schedule. Even though the concepts, design, and technologies are sound, errors still occur throughout development. The later such bugs are discovered and fixed during the development phase, the higher the costs become. Fixing an error in a live system costs significantly more than identifying and resolving or preventing it during the initial phase of a project.
That's why we start the quality assurance process early: we clarify responsibilities, identify risks, define requirements and acceptance criteria, and integrate test planning from the very beginning. This way, we prevent errors before they even arise.
Testing is part of all (digital) solutions, whether it's a mobile app, a progressive web app, a website or an IoT gadget. To know what exactly needs to be tested, you need clearly defined requirements. We're happy to support you in eliciting and defining the requirements for your product, a process known as requirement engineering.
Together, we define what your product needs to be able to do (functional requirements) and under what conditions it should run (non-functional requirements).
Functional requirements
Functional requirements usually involve features, for example: exactly what happens when button XY is clicked. Based on these requirements, we create user stories and define the acceptance criteria. User stories and acceptance criteria form the basis for creating test cases, which we use to perform and document the testing.
Non-functional requirements
Non-functional requirements describe how and under what conditions a function should behave – they can be categorized into performance and quality characteristics as well as constraints. This includes, for example, requirements for server locations or performance, data protection regulations, or system compatibility requirements. Depending on the product, the list can be nearly endless. We're happy to support you in identifying the requirements for your project.
We use various methods to ensure that your product functions according to requirements. Some of these are mandatory: unit tests, functional testing, end-to-end tests and design reviews are part of every project. In many projects, this "test palette" is expanded, and when a project demands it, specialized testing methods are also utilized.
Our mobile device lab contains well over 100 devices. This mainly includes smartphones running iOS or Android, but also tablets, Windows devices, smartwatches, and AR glasses like the Apple Vision Pro. We test software products developed by us on these devices – in addition to testing in the cloud with virtual devices.
Testing under real-world conditions with actual devices and different operating system versions is critical for checking interactions with device sensors, GPS, Bluetooth, or interfaces with external hardware and machinery. Furthermore, it's important to get a visual impression of the digital product and to verify functions such as scrolling, transitions, gestures, and movements.
We regularly monitor sales and usage statistics for the most important and widely used devices and OS versions on the market. A solid mix of real devices, simulators, and emulators should be defined in every quality strategy to achieve high device coverage.
Traceability and documentation are essential for quality assurance: What worked (or didn't work), when, under what conditions, and how? This documentation helps to efficiently resolve new issues and provides verifiable proof of quality.
Key tools include integrated development environments (IDEs) such as Apple Xcode, Android Studio, Visual Studio Code, and others. For managing test cases and executing test runs, we use tools such as Testrail. Bugs that arise during testing – or worse, during live operation – are subsequently logged and resolved in the respective project management tool.
To ensure that process, product and service quality are continuously monitored and improved, Apps with love maintains an established quality management system (QMS) that's certified according to ISO 9001. The main objective of the QMS is to improve the services we offer and to ensure compliance with quality and safety standards.
As we're also committed to protecting the environment in our efforts to achieve these quality standards and continuously improve our processes, we also have a certified environmental management system in accordance with ISO 14001.
And, of course, information security management is central to our work as a digital agency. That's why we're also ISO 27001 certified.
