How Global App Testing helped Dialogue improve patient outcomes
Dialogue is a series B startup which drives healthcare accessibility throughout Canada. Global App Testing helped Dialogue put processes in place to improve their patient outcomes.
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The company
Founded in Canada, Dialogue has been revolutionizing the world of telemedicine and healthcare for the past 2 years. Dialogue’s mission is to make healthcare more accessible.
They have developed a platform for patients to connect with nurses and doctors via video chat and access resources about their treatment plan or health. Dialogue’s products include a mobile and web app for patients, as well as a platform for healthcare practitioners with Web, Windows and Mac versions.
Dialogue helps patients via a dedicated team of healthcare professionals that work hand-in-hand with the product engineering team. This multidisciplinary team has seen massive user growth as more businesses move to offer telemedicine as a perk. The growth that Dialogue has enjoyed is welcome, but also gives rise to more challenges.
The challenges
Dialogue relied on a QA manager and a small team of engineers to perform unit testing, end-user testing and regression testing. “It was very, very hard for us to forecast how much could get done within each sprint because the team would continuously split its focus between software engineering and application testing,” said Alexis Smirnov, Co-Founder and CTO of Dialogue.
Unpredictable sprints and bug bashes
Dialogue’s initial QA strategy included two types of tests: developer testing as part
of the engineering sprints and bug bashes. Testing tasks were scheduled throughout development to have engineers test functionality. Engineers were unable to accurately predict the scope of testing that of the engineering sprints and bug bashes.
Testing tasks were scheduled throughout development to have engineers test functionality. Engineers were unable to accurately predict the scope of testing that they would need with each sprint. Progress was slow and upcoming release dates were always uncertain.
Dialogue also used bug bashes to uncover as many issues as possible, with employees across the company using the software intensively and reporting every bug they found. These bug bashes generated feedback for the development team, but this unstructured and inconsistent approach didn’t give Dialogue enough visibility.
The workload of the Dialogue development team and the unpredictability of the QA process highlighted their need for outside help. Dialogue got confirmation that there was a problem when a bug caused the video chat feature to stop working, rendering patients unable to contact medical professionals.
This major disruption prompted them to consider their options. Dialogue knew that QA needed to be addressed in the long term to build value and recognized that it was time to focus on quality in order to thrive. Global App Testing delivered a bespoke solution to booking dot com which was tailored to their challenges and goals.
Working with Global App Testing
Partnering with Global App Testing turned out to be a winning strategy for Dialogue. Benefits included improved test plans, increased testing scale, predictable testing sprints and better test case execution.
Increased testing scale
Seeking outside help made testing more scalable. Dialogue was able to perform tests to reproduce an environment where several patients and medical professionals use the
telemedicine platform at the same time.
Predictable testing sprints and velocity
Dialogue was able to achieve a consistent pace for testing and rely on 48-hour QA turnaround for each sprint thanks to Global App Testing’s global crowd of more than 20,000 testers. Dialogue can now predict how many story points can be covered and uses the outcome of each sprint to improve test plans and coverage for the next iteration.
Test case execution
Dialogue saw an improvement in predictability and velocity in test sprints thanks to better test case execution. Dialogue can count on Global App Testing to handle all the regression tests needed before releasing a new version of the product.
The results
Working with Global App Testing has allowed Dialogue to extend the scope of its testing to make sure a flawed product doesn’t move to production. Before getting help from Global App Testing, Dialogue was dealing with a growing number of active bugs, including many P2 bugs. The number of ongoing P2 bugs now stays well below 10. Addressing these bugs was crucial since they impact the experience of a significant portion of users.
Partnering with Global App Testing has been a gamechanger for Dialogue. The scope and outcome of testing have significantly improved, and they are confident that major disruptions won’t happen again now that there is a reliable infrastructure to quality testing.
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