Quality Assurance should not only depend on technical skills, tools, and methodologies. Integrating Domain Knowledge in the process can help the team deliver products of high quality by building a better understanding of the business.

1. Domain Knowledge
The Hidden Power Behind Quality Assurance

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Testing is context-dependent

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What is Domain Knowledge?
A broad-based understanding of a particular industry
and facts about the environment in which the system
(under test) operates
It may include user workflows, data pipelines, business
policies, configurations and constraints and is crucial in
the development of a software application

4. 4
What is Domain Knowledge?
For an EU FinTech company:
• Bancontact is the most popular electronic payment service in Belgium
• Carte Bancaire is the payment standard in France
For an airline:
• Data about the flight routes covered by an airline is domain knowledge
• Search algorithms used to locate the cheapest entry is not

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Case Study: Spotify Artists

6. - Low adoption rates compared to other Asian nations
- Problem with “Last Name” field during signup
- “Why wouldn’t you enter a last name?”
- About 40% of the population don’t have a last name
- Most of the users stop at this point
- Fixing that bug unlocked a market of 262m users
Case Study: The Indonesian Last Name
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 In fast-growing organizations, simple things often get overlooked
 A tester’s knowledge of local constraints and user workflow saved the day
[7]

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Testing Skills Technical Expertise
The Hidden Power behind Quality Assurance
Domain Knowledge
images from www.pokemon.com
 3D testing career mentioned by Danny R. Fought
based on Rex Black’s book Critical Testing Processes
 The factor that can unlock full potential
 A point of reference in the organization

8. ISTQB Domain Specific Certifications
The emerging need for Domain Expert Testers
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How to build Domain Knowledge
- Study documentation (specs, standards, guidelines etc)
- Learn about variations in business rules and regulations
- Analyze previous projects
- Observe the competition
- Think like the customer
- Work closer with the BAs and Subject Matter Experts
- Use and share your own experience
- Attend Industry Events
- Search for courses and certifications
- Build, update and share a Knowledge Base

10. - Better understanding of company’s vision
- Everyone speaks the same language
- It puts your team in the user's shoes
- It boosts the productivity of your team
- It tells the team where to look for defects
- It helps teams prioritize bugs
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Advantages for your QA Team
And one disadvantage
- Relatively useless outside the domain

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 Every QA Engineer should cultivate this Hidden Power
 Organizations should promote Domain Knowledge sharing between teams
 Domain Expertise will increase the confidence in the product quality
 A QA Engineer without domain knowledge gets the job done
 A QA Engineer with domain knowledge gets the job done faster and better
QA Engineer with Domain Knowledge
Conclusion
QA Engineer without Domain Knowledge

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Thank You!
You can find me at
linkedin.com/in/kostaskaramichalis
kostas.karamichalis@gmail.com

13. - [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/domain-knowledge
- [2] https://www.project-skills.com/domain-knowledge-important-project-management/
- [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_knowledge
- [4] https://www.encyclopedia.com/computing/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/domain-knowledge
- [5] https://community.spotify.com/t5/Music-Chat/The-Prodigy-and-Prodigy-are-not-the-same-FIX-THIS/td-p/95467
- [6] https://www.leadingqualitybook.com/
- [7] https://www.vice.com/en_asia/article/j5xmgp/the-uniquely-indonesian-pains-of-having-only-one-name
- [8] https://www.stickyminds.com/article/testing-career-3-d
- [9] https://www.istqb.org/certification-path-root.html
- [10] https://gerrardconsulting.com/blog/category/new_model_testing/
- [11] https://blog.qasource.com/5-reasons-why-your-qa-team-needs-domain-knowledge/
- https://corevalue.net/business-domain-knowledge-providing-quality/
- https://www.webomates.com/blog/domain-knowledge/
- https://www.encyclopedia.com/computing/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/domain-knowledge
- https://www.webomates.com/blog/domain-knowledge/
- https://www.sihui.io/domain-knowledge-and-vision/
- https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/is-domain-knowledge-necessary-for-a-tester/
- https://mast.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/RE14_BRinpractice.pdf
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