3 Key Tips to Enhance QA & Development Collaboration for Website Launch Success

As a website build nears the final stages, it’s time for the customer to review the build and to provide feedback. It’s an exciting time as the final product is taking its final form and the deadline is fast approaching. Quality Assurance (QA) is an important part of the High Monkey website build process. We’ve molded our process over the years to ensure a finished product is delivered on time, and with the blessing of our customers.

Below are 3 tips to ensure effective collaboration between your development and QA teams. The customer should have been updated throughout the build process, so let’s assume any major changes have been hashed out already. Now is the time to cross Ts and dot the Is.
 

1. Get lots of eyes on the build – on different browsers and devices

Developers and project owners have been in the thick of the site build for a few months. Those involved in the build process tend to form blind spots, to no fault of their own. It’s time to recruit a few employees from the customer to review the website. Anyone with a fresh perspective is welcome to take some time out of their week to click around the new website. It’s important to get a lot of eyeballs on the new website, but be careful including too many people - otherwise you’ll find yourself wading through the personal opinions of 100 users wondering why their department isn’t front and center on the new website.

The users recruited are encouraged to view the site through different browsers and devices. This should naturally occur with 8-10 users, but request them to view the site on their phone and desktop.
 

2. Create a central tracking location with minimal gate keepers

With all these eyeballs on the new site it’s time to collect the findings. Here at High Monkey, we like using a good old-fashioned spreadsheet for this. Nowadays there are lots of software options out there, so it’s really up to you to use what works best. 
When collecting issues, it’s important to gather specific pieces of information. We include the following columns in our spreadsheet to avoid unnecessary back and forth if a developer cannot replicate the issue:

• Description of the issue
• URL
• Mobile or desktop
• Browser
• Additional notes
• Issue status – this is for developers to track and log their progress.

Allow anyone involved in QA to log their issues, but choose 1-2 people to manage the spreadsheet or tracking software. Their role is to identify duplicate issues and prioritize items as they come in. Without dedicated management, the issues list can quickly get sloppy, so it's essential to have someone overseeing this process.
 

3. Plan enough time ahead to re-test and fix additional issues

QA isn’t just some afterthought at the end of a project; it requires dedicated time to find and resolve issues before the site is launched. Launching a site then trying to fix any issues is a nightmare and just a bad look overall. Plan at least a week, probably two, to thoroughly review the new website and prepare it for launch. Make sure to re-test to confirm that issues have indeed been resolved! 
 

Quality Assurance means putting out a great final product. Once a new site is launched, users will find issues. The goal is to identify and resolve as many of those issues as possible beforehand. The three tips above will ensure a smooth process leading into the launch of a new website.