How to do a Quick QA

You are almost at the finish line of launching a website. But realized that no one has quality assured your work or tested the site! What to do?! Here’s a quick, fast and dirty list of things to QA for before a launch:

1. Get a new set of eyes on it.
   1. Whether your client has a spare moment or a co-worker, it’s always a good idea to have someone who isn’t intimately acquainted with your website to take a look. A fresh set of eyes can find things you didn’t see before.
2. Test in all major browsers
   1. Most folks use Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Opera these days. Do a run through the site on each browser to make sure everything works as it should.
3. Test all Interactive features
   1. Features like email sign up, language switching software, store/purchases, and many others would be good to test before launching. It may be difficult to test on a staging/development site, but getting the idea of how it should work before launching can save you a lot of headaches in the future
      1. Email sign up / subscriptions / newsletters
      2. Language switching 
      3. Store /  purchases 
      4. Contact form
      5. Navigation in header and footer
      6. All forms (check the admin email and where form notifications will be sent to) 
4. Test all links, buttons, and anything hyperlinked
   1. Sometimes when you copy and paste from a document into your website, the links may or may not make it over. Double check those links and make sure they go to the correct location. Buttons are also overlooked, especially on new sites where not all pages are created at the beginning of the process. 
5. Responsive testing / mobile testing
   1. We’re glued to our cell phones these days, there’s a high likelihood that a user will find your site using their cell phone or another mobile device like a tablet. Make sure your site looks presentable on mobile. All navigation should be easily clickable and the content should be legible. If there’s a feature that doesn’t work on mobile, perhaps try to hide it until you can get it working or find an alternative.
6. Content check
   1. People can change their minds more often than we prefer. When it’s time to launch they might have a few content changes or an entire site overhaul. Setting a deadline might be useful here, plan a content cut off date a few days before launch. Then the client can do any content updates they like after the site has launched. 
7. Accessibility Checks
   1. The Accessibility of a website is extremely important. Make sure all images have alt texts, the navigation is easy to access, and the content is easy and clear to follow. Also look into Accessibility test tools by 3rd parties, they can come in handy in a pinch.

Like we mentioned, this is a quick and dirty list of how to do a quick QA of a site. Even though it’s preferred to test a website inside out before launch, sometimes time slips by without us realizing. The list above will cover a lot of user experience cases, but always go back and do a thorough QA of any website.