“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.” – A Quality Engineer

With new technologies emerging ever so often, testing at various stages of production becomes necessary but not sufficient. While testing ensures that the programs behind the user experience are error free, there needs to be a mechanism within the path to production that ensures that the standards of quality are recognized and met all through to ensure that the experience being provided is not just efficient but also desirable.

Studies show that up to 92% users are willing to switch to a better service provider after a few negative or inadequate experiences with a company. This goes to show the impact the abundant choices have on the consumers’ loyalty to a brand and what it takes to upkeep the loyalty. With such little room for error, the role of quality engineering gains prominence.

With the aim of minimizing the time and effort invested in the process of development and production, the system of quality engineering analyzes processes and outputs to ensure not just accuracy and efficiency but also high quality through recognized standards. While ensuring quality is a part of everyone’s work, there is a need for a person or a team whose sole priority is to support the organization’s efforts in quality engineering. The team creates, implements, and maintains the systems that ensure that high standards of quality are being fulfilled. The means of this implementation—the know-how and tools required—are also developed as a part of this process.

In the user-centered design model, these standards are informed heavily by the requirements and the expectations of the consumers, besides the services provided by the competitors, in order to stay ahead of the game. With a vast majority of this information coming in through different forms of data, Data Analytics forms an important part of the work they do. Besides, handling Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and other such Industry 4.0 technologies contribute greatly towards the enhancement of the quality systems established for an organization.

An interesting feature of quality engineering is improving the feedback loop. With all the data that is being processed and the internal quality control in progress, the quality engineering team has a strong vantage point that allows it to identify and establish innovative connections that strengthen the feedback loop, making it more effective without increasing the consumption of time and other resources.

An important shift that quality engineering brings to the approach of design and production is that of adapting a preventive approach rather than a reactive one. While the testing vertical is in place and equipped to detect problems, quality engineering is attempting to take preemptive measures, not just with the intention to avoid problems but also to embed practices and processes that make the high standard and inherent quality of the process and the product.

QE as an aid to Digital Transformation

By virtue of what Quality Engineering brings to the table, it is a vertical that supports the process of Digital Transformation. As the strands of testing done by QE can be mistaken to be similar to that of testing, it is worth noting that the testing in QE is not just for errors but for improvement and perfection. The user-centric quality standards, the transformation of processes to leverage the digital medium, and the ability to plug in feedback at multiple points makes Quality Engineering a must-have for effective Digital Transformation.

Heuristics Evaluation (HE) is an approach that Quality Engineering can put to great use. Heuristics Evaluation is the process of evaluating the user interface on pre-decided metrics and usability principles. The purpose of the HE is fulfilled with the results of the evaluation being transformed into actionable iterations that the design team can incorporate. As a suitable first step in moving towards user-centric design and digital transformation, Heuristics Evaluation can go a long way in setting an organization on the right track. The evaluation can include various aspects such as security, accessibility, functional tests, non-functional tests, and so on.

Communication and collaboration

Owing to the nature of the work and the broad ground that is being covered, it is important for the quality engineering teams to set up and promote the channels and culture for smooth communication and collaboration.  Industry experts vouch for the importance of healthy and open communication at large in organizations and lay emphasis on the quality engineering teams, in particular. Digital Transformation requires a more humane and equitable perspective of the teams working in the organization in order for ownership to grow ground up and for creativity to flourish. Similarly, quality engineering—a team that can come across as the inner critic of the organization—needs to exercise particularly strong communication skills to fulfil its purpose and maintain a motivating and positive environment at the same time.

Conclusion

With the increasingly dynamic and volatile market and consumers spoilt for choice, it is important to appreciate the nuanced additions that Quality Engineering can make. In organizations across industries, particularly in the banking and financial industry, Digital Transformation is still in the nascent stages. Labscove’s robust set of practices include technologies and processes that guarantee high-quality consumer experiences.