I’ve been learning about quality assurance testing for software. Although I don’t have a tech background, I am interested in the methodical and organised approach taken in software QA.

Every field of work has words that are unfamiliar to outsiders. Software QA is no different. I’ve learnt several new software QA terms recently, including “smoke testing.”

The term originates from hardware engineering. If they turned on a new machine and smoke came out, it clearly wasn’t working. Any further quality tests would be a waste of time and resources. The machine was sent to be fixed and QA was postponed.

In software QA, a smoke test checks whether the software works on its most essential level. Let’s say a QA is smoke testing a new shopping website. They check the following areas:

• Does log in work?
• Does product search work?
• Can users put products in the basket?
• Can users arrange delivery?
• Can users pay?
• Can users log out?

If an early stage in the customer journey doesn’t work, there’s no point in QA testing the later stages. Not being able to log in is the equivalent of smoke pouring out of the website. The smoke test approach avoids wasting money on unnecessary quality assurance testing.

I’ve been thinking about how smoke testing applies to proofreading and copyediting.

When I receive a document or publication, I check whether it has all its pages and whether a significant amount of content appears to be missing. I also have a quick look for anything else that might have gone wrong, such as corrupted text. People do sometimes send in the wrong file or file version without realising it.

If I spot an obvious problem right from the start, I ask the client to check that they’ve sent the correct document before I carry on with my QA. I suppose this is as close as I get to a smoke test.

Something similar but different happens in fiction editing for indie authors. There are specialist editors for each stage in the story-writing process. If an editor thinks that it is too soon for a story to be sent to them, they let the author know. This protects the author from wasting money on inappropriate QA. Fiction editors are in an unusual position because their “smoke test” involves evaluating how well developed the content of a story actually is.

I work on written materials such as courses, business communications, and magazines. My smoke test focuses on obvious errors in production (e.g. incomplete, corrupted, or unexpected material).

I don’t look at how well developed the content is.

For example, I wouldn’t turn to the creator of a British English course and say, “I can’t proofread this. Your course is underdeveloped because you focus on just one accent.” The creator’s content choices would be none of my business.

A software QA for a shopping website would be in a similar position. Their thoughts about the product range are irrelevant to their work. Their job is to check whether the website does what it was designed to do for the customer.

I’m looking forward to learning more about software QA. I wonder what other parallels I’ll see with my own work.