Domain-Specific QA
Why domain-specific QA matters
General testing principles stay the same, but failure modes change by system type. Good QA strategy adapts to the domain instead of reusing one checklist everywhere.
Web applications
Focus areas: - Cross-browser behavior and responsive layouts. - Session handling, caching, and client-side state. - Accessibility and keyboard navigation. - Analytics events and consent flows.
High-value checks: - Login, checkout, search, form validation. - Browser back/refresh behavior. - Slow network and offline recovery.
Mobile applications
Focus areas: - OS/device fragmentation. - App lifecycle: background, foreground, interrupted state. - Push notifications and permission prompts. - Network variability and battery/data constraints.
High-value checks: - Install/update/migration behavior. - Deep links and app resume flows. - Low connectivity and airplane-mode recovery.
API and backend systems
Focus areas: - Contract compatibility and schema evolution. - Idempotency, retries, rate limits, and auth. - Data consistency across services. - Observability: logs, metrics, traces, audit events.
High-value checks: - Versioning and backward compatibility. - Error shape and status codes. - Duplicate requests and timeout recovery.
Data / ETL / analytics systems
Focus areas: - Schema drift and null handling. - Late-arriving data and ordering issues. - Data quality rules and reconciliation. - Pipeline retry, replay, and backfill safety.
High-value checks: - Row counts and duplicate detection. - Type coercion and malformed record handling. - Idempotent reruns and partition correctness.
AI / LLM systems
Focus areas: - Prompt/version drift and model variability. - Grounding quality and hallucination risk. - Safety, privacy, and toxic output filtering. - Cost, latency, fallback, and observability.
High-value checks: - Golden dataset regression. - Retrieval quality for RAG systems. - Prompt injection and jailbreak resistance. - Human review for critical decisions.
Fintech / payments
Focus areas: - Monetary correctness and rounding. - Duplicate charge prevention. - Audit trail and reconciliation. - Compliance, fraud, and access controls.
High-value checks: - Partial payment and refund flows. - Idempotency keys on retries. - Statement accuracy and timezone handling.
Choosing your domain checklist
| Domain | Extra test emphasis |
|---|---|
| Web | Compatibility, accessibility, UX state |
| Mobile | Lifecycle, devices, interruptions |
| API/backend | Contracts, resilience, observability |
| Data/ETL | Quality rules, replay, reconciliation |
| AI/LLM | Safety, evaluation datasets, human oversight |
| Fintech | Correctness, auditability, duplicate prevention |
The more business-critical the domain, the more QA must combine functional, non-functional, and operational checks into one strategy.