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ToggleAs a QA Manager or Tester, you’re likely juggling multiple projects, which means you deal with numerous website elements for quality assurance (QA) across projects. This can be overwhelming, lead to high-stress levels, and eventually impact the overall quality of the website you’re supposed to QA or oversee its testing process.
That’s why we’ve created a website QA checklist to take some manual and repetitive tasks off your shoulders. This checklist allows you to improve your QA process, ensure no detail is overlooked, and maintain the highest quality standards for all your projects and clients.
A website QA checklist…
💡 You can use this website QA checklist directly on your website or download a free copy in Microsoft Excel (which you can use in Google Sheets) for your convenience. Another good thing: with the website QA checklist template in Excel or any spreadhseet, you can customize or add more details per your needs.
Website QA is crucial because it ensures that your website functions correctly and provides a seamless user experience.
By identifying and fixing issues before the site goes live, you can prevent potential problems that could frustrate users, damage your brand’s reputation, and lead to lost revenue.
Effective QA helps maintain high standards of performance, security, and accessibility, ensuring that your website meets the needs and expectations of all users.
The key elements of a website quality assurance process include different types of testing methods that target various aspects of a website. Each angle of testing focuses on specific areas to ensure comprehensive coverage and high-quality performance.
Using this website QA checklist with your team will ensure that you can systematically verify that your website meets all necessary standards and provides an optimal user experience.
This holistic approach helps identify and rectify issues across functionality, design, performance, security, and content, ensuring that every component of your website works seamlessly together.
Now, here goes the key elements of a website QA checklist:
Functional testing ensures that all features of your website work as expected. This includes verifying that each function of the website or web app operates in conformance with the requirement specification.
UI checks focus on the visual aspects of your website to ensure a consistent and user-friendly experience.
Navigation checks ensure that users can easily and intuitively move through your website.
Forms and input checks ensure that all form elements function correctly and provide a good user experience.
This ensures that all links and buttons on your website are functional and provide the expected behavior.
Search functionality checks ensure that users can find what they are looking for without unnecessary effort or time.
Conduct additional functional checks for any unique features or functionalities on your website.
Ensures a smooth and secure transaction experience for users, from adding items to their carts to completing their purchases.
This ensures that users can manage their accounts effectively and securely.
Content testing ensures that all the information on your website is accurate, complete, and accessible to all users. This involves verifying the validity, quality and consistency of the content to align with your brand’s messaging and goals.
Accuracy and completeness checks ensure that all information on your website is correct and fully informative.
Spelling and grammar checks ensure that your content is free from errors and maintains a professional tone.
Consistency and clarity checks ensure that the language used on your website is clear, concise, and consistent.
Website accessibility checks ensure your content is accessible to all users, including those with functional needs.
Multilingual support checks ensure that your website can effectively serve users who speak different languages.
Grab your free copy of the Website QA checklist in Excel. Save time and leave no website element untested.
DownloadDesign and user experience testing ensures that your website is visually appealing, easy to use, and provides a positive experience for all users.
This element evaluates the visual appeal and overall design of the website, ensuring that elements are well-balanced and aligned.
This element checks how well the website adapts to different devices and screen sizes, ensuring consistent functionality and usability.
Measures the time taken for individual pages to load fully, focusing on optimizing elements for faster performance.
User-friendliness assesses how easy the website is to use and navigate, especially for first-time visitors, ensuring intuitive placement of elements.
This ensures that visual cues guide user attention effectively and that the information hierarchy is clear, promoting readability.
This tests the functionality of interactive components like sliders, carousels, and modals to ensure they work correctly.
Grab your free copy of the Website QA checklist in Excel. Save time and leave no website element untested.
DownloadPerformance testing ensures that your website operates efficiently under various conditions and provides a smooth user experience.
Measures the time taken for individual pages to load fully, focusing on optimizing elements for faster performance.
Stress testing evaluates the website’s performance under high load conditions, identifying bottlenecks and ensuring stability during peak user periods.
This testing phase assesses the time taken for the server to respond to user requests, optimizing server resources and monitoring performance for potential issues.
This ensures that the website handles errors and unexpected situations properly, accurately redirecting users to intended pages.
Browser compatibility tests the website on different browsers to ensure consistent rendering and functionality across all major browsers.
Load testing simulates multiple users to assess the website’s performance under load, identifying performance bottlenecks and scalability issues.
Grab your free copy of the Website QA checklist in Excel. Save time and leave no website element untested.
DownloadSecurity testing ensures that your website is protected against threats and vulnerabilities, safeguarding user data and maintaining trust.
This ensures compliance with data protection regulations and secure handling of user data.
Vulnerability testing involves identifying and addressing potential security vulnerabilities.
Conduct this test to ensure secure data transmission and authentication.
This involves managing user sessions securely to prevent unauthorized access.
Testing third-party integrations will help you assess and secure external services and APIs.
SEO testing ensures that your website is optimized for search engines, improving visibility and ranking.
These elements ensure that meta tags and descriptions are accurate and optimized for search engines like Google.
Verifying that sitemap and robots.txt files are correctly configured allow search engines to crawl and index the website.
This test ensures proper handling of cookies and user consent in compliance with regulations.
Validating schema markup enhances search engine visibility and user experience.
Testing mobile SEO ensures the website is mobile-friendly and properly indexed by search engines.
Grab your free copy of the Website QA checklist in Excel. Save time and leave no website element untested.
DownloadExploratory testing involves exploring the website without any predefined guidelines or strict plans. This approach allows testers to use their creativity and intuition to identify unexpected issues and areas for improvement. It helps uncover bugs and usability problems that might not be found through structured testing methods.
Different types of websites have unique requirements and challenges. This section provides a website QA checklist tailored to specific website types to ensure comprehensive quality assurance testing.
eCommerce Websites require thorough testing to ensure a seamless shopping experience for the user, secure transactions, and accurate product information.
Content-heavy websites focus on delivering large amounts of information, requiring effective organization, SEO, and user-friendly navigation.
Web applications require robust testing of interactive features, data handling, and integration with other services to ensure functionality and security.
Mobile websites need to be optimized for smaller screens and touch interactions, ensuring a responsive and accessible experience for mobile users.
Grab your free copy of the Website QA checklist in Excel. Save time and leave no website element untested.
DownloadTo ensure a thorough and effective website QA process,
Not all elements of a website are equally critical for each project. So prioritize testing elements based on the project scope to help focus efforts on the most important areas first.
This involves identifying key functionalities and features that are essential for the website’s operation and user experience. For example, an e-commerce site might prioritize testing the checkout process and payment gateways, while a content-heavy site might focus on content organization and SEO.
Choosing between manual and automated testing techniques depends on the project requirements, budget, and timeline.
Manual testing is beneficial for exploratory, usability, and ad-hoc testing where human judgment is crucial. On the other hand, automated testing is ideal for repetitive tasks, regression testing, and performance testing, as it can save time and reduce human error.
A balanced approach often involves using both techniques to leverage their respective strengths for your project needs.
When you outline specific steps for each phase of the testing process, it ensures a structured and comprehensive approach to the website QA process. This includes defining test cases, setting up the testing environment, executing tests, and documenting results.
Each phase should have clear objectives and deliverables. For instance, the initial phase might involve setting up test environments and preparing test data, while subsequent phases focus on functional, performance, and security testing.
Effective stakeholder collaboration and thorough documentation are essential for a successful website QA process. This involves maintaining clear communication among team members, using communication tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack, collaborative review tools like zipBoard (see below), and project management tools like Jira and Wrike to share information with relevant stakeholders, and document all testing activities.
Proper documentation helps track progress, identify issues, and provide a reference for future projects. It also ensures that knowledge is retained within the team, even if members change.
Invite internal and external stakeholders to a zipBoard project to test and give feedback on websites during QA
Implementing robust bug tracking and reporting methods is crucial for managing and resolving issues efficiently. This involves using bug-tracking tools to log, prioritize, and track the status of bugs.
Using clear and detailed bug reports helps developers understand and fix issues quickly. Additionally, regular review meetings can help prioritize bugs based on their impact and urgency, ensuring that critical issues are addressed promptly.
zipBoard’s bug tracking software can help with not only visual collaboration during the QA process but also tracking and reporting bugs in one place. Good thing, it integrates with Jira, Wrike, Lambda Test, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.
Track bugs from your website QA in zipBoard
Having an idea of frequent mistakes in the website QA process and providing strategies to avoid them can improve the overall quality of testing.
Common oversights include neglecting edge cases, failing to test on all supported browsers and devices, and overlooking performance and security aspects. To avoid these, it’s important to have a comprehensive test plan, conduct thorough reviews, and continuously update testing practices based on lessons learned.
Using appropriate tools for automated testing, bug tracking, and collaboration can enhance the QA process.
Automated testing tools like Selenium, Lambda Test, or JUnit can streamline repetitive tasks. More so, bug tracking software like zipBoard, Jira, or Bugzilla helps manage issues effectively.
Additionally, collaboration tools like Slack, Microsft Teams, or Trello facilitate communication.
Finally, visual collaboration tools like zipBoard (video below) and Filestage can aid in reviewing design and user interface elements by both technical and non-technical testers or stakeholders, within and outside of your organization.
zipBoard is a visual feedback and bug-tracking tool designed to enhance the website QA process by providing a range of features that streamline collaboration, bug tracking, reporting, and integration with your existing tools. Here’s how zipBoard can significantly improve your website QA workflow:
zipBoard offers robust collaborative review tools that allow team members to provide real-time feedback directly on the website. This feature is useful for:
Functional & Design Testing for Website QA using zipBoard. Click to try for free. No sign ups.
zipBoard’s visual bug tracking and reporting features make it easy to identify, document, and resolve issues. Key features include:
Track and report bugs from website QA reviews in one place – zipBoard
zipBoard integrates seamlessly with a variety of project management systems, testing tools, bug tracking tools, and collaboration software, enhancing your existing workflows. Some of the integrations include:
Track and report bugs in zipBoard and automatically sync with Jira (turn on audio 👆)
zipBoard makes it easy for both technical and non-technical stakeholders to participate in the website QA process. This inclusivity ensures that feedback is comprehensive and that all perspectives are considered.
Start your free trial and use zipBoard for your next website QA. Collaborate with both technical and non-technical stakeholders in one place. Have any questions? Reach out by booking a demo.
Book DemoStart Free TrialUsing the website QA checklist, coupled with visual feedback and bug tracking tools like zipBoard will ensure that your websites are launched with exceptional quality, delivering a seamless and positive user experience.
Download your free Website QA Checklist Template (Excel) now to streamline your QA process and prioritize testing efforts. Then, explore zipBoard’s intuitive features to further enhance collaboration, bug tracking, and overall project efficiency.
Author’s bio:
Dorcas Kpabitey is a Content Marketing Specialist at zipBoard. She began her content marketing journey alongside her BA in Political Science and Spanish at the University of Ghana. If she is not tapping away at her keyboard or spending time on Twitter and LinkedIn, she spends her day reading articles, newsletters and books.
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