27 October 2021
LMS QA: The quality assurance processes we follow on our e-learning projects
Jonny McAlister
Head of Sales & Marketing
Learn about the steps we take to quality assure every new LMS we create.
We work hard to get everything right with the design and build of our learning platforms. But as the old saying goes, it’s better to be safe than sorry. That’s why we also build quality assurance processes into all of our learning management system projects.
LMS QA (quality assurance) is about making sure we haven’t overlooked any bugs or problems, and that the LMS is of the highest possible quality before we share it with you. Literally giving us assurance that an LMS is of the quality we expect before we send it out into the world. We have a dedicated QA team, which works exclusively on quality assurance of our projects.
Here’s how they go about doing that.
QA planning
Our QA team is involved from the moment we have a specification for your LMS. They will study the brief and build a quote for the quality assurance aspect of the project, ensuring that part of your budget is allocated to these crucial final checks and making sure that everything is working as it should be.
Readying test cases
At this early stage in the project, our QA testers will also start to think about the sort of things they will want to test. Again, taking your specification as their starting point, they will think about the typical user journeys that your learners and admins will be making around the LMS.
They will then prepare test cases, which will allow them to follow the same steps a user will take and check for any bugs they encounter on the way.
LMS QA testing
Once our developers and UX team have completed their work on building and designing the new site, your project moves to our QA team. Using the Zephyr Squad test management plugin for Jira, they run the test cycles that allow them to follow typical user journeys around your LMS. All the tests are run manually, so our experienced QA testers see exactly what your learners will see as they compare the design and functionality of what we’ve created with your specification.
They examine the PHP and coding written by our developers, checking for any bugs and ensuring the functionality fulfils the technical element of your brief. They also explore the user experience, ensuring that the LMS meets the look and feel of your design requirements.
Our QA testers joke that their role is to annoy developers by finding bugs. If they are successful in this mission, they will raise tickets for any bugs found during the test cycles. Since our developers and UX team also use Jira, there is full traceability across a central system for handling these tickets.
Retesting
Once our developers or designers have tackled any bugs found during the testing cycles, your LMS will come back to our QA team for retesting. This gives our QA testers the opportunity to make sure the issue they highlighted has been resolved correctly and that no new bugs have arisen.
Sign-off
Only when our QA team have tested the system thoroughly, undertaken their due diligence and are happy that they will be handing over a high quality LMS is your site signed off for release.
Talk to us about LMS QA
If you’re planning a new or updated LMS and would like your site to go through the rigorous LMS QA checks outlined in this article, get in touch for a chat. Fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch.
