Mindful QA

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the web development manager at Casual Astronaut, a digital marketing agency. We have around 30 people and are based in Phoenix, Arizona. We mainly do websites for higher education, hospitality, destination marketing, and nonprofit organizations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mindful QA?

For most of our projects, we must complete a full audit of our work to ensure nothing is broken on any devices.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mindful QA is our go-to QA testing service. They check all our boxes regarding accessibility, compliance, usability, and every final requirement we need to go through.

They have a fleet of devices. Mindful QA owns a lot of obscure Android hardware and different platforms and computers, so they can do a lot of specific, non-simulated testing on the actual hardware.

Overall, for all intents and purposes, they primarily test our websites on various devices and enter the results into a spreadsheet and Google Docs.

What is the team composition?

We usually work with Wes (Founder) and a tester.

How did you come to work with Mindful QA?

I referred them. I used Mindful QA at my last agency in Berkeley, where I had the same job. Their founder was local, so I met him; they were great.

How much have you invested with them?

We have a flat agreement with them. We’ve spent a ballpark amount of $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in October 2021, and it’s an ongoing business relationship. We work on a project basis and retain them for all of our work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Before we started using Mindful QA, everyone at the company used their computers to test out the websites, which took hours away from everyone’s tasks. Now that we have a dedicated testing service, we save at least 30 hours per project, considering we were taking 30 people an hour of their time on every project.

Moreover, the quality of their work is always excellent. Mindful QA always finds strange things that we wouldn’t have found ourselves.

How did Mindful QA perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is amazing. They deliver on time and within budget.

We communicate over emails and Google Docs for updates.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I’d give a shout-out to our tester.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their adaptability is their strength; we often throw them work with little notice. Moreover, they’re very extensible in what they can test. We’ve had them test everything from applications to websites, and there hasn’t been a project they can’t do. Mindful QA is an all-purpose agency, and we admire and appreciate that about them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re doing an excellent job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Involving them in the right stage of the project is critical. Sometimes you won’t get the most out of their service if you do it too early. Since their turnaround time is so fast, you must schedule them at the very end. 

Also, don’t be afraid to change when they’re set to perform their service. They’re really adaptable and flexible, so you might as well have them work when you’re actually ready to get the most out of it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Director of COSA

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Help corporations, ngos, governments and investors measure sustainability on farms in the global south.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Mindful QA to accomplish?

• Test our platform(s) for bugs
• Provide input into the UX/UI

SOLUTION

How did you find Mindful QA?

Referral

Why did you select Mindful QA over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Mindful QA were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The platform is highly adaptive and required testing a multitude of response combinations with multiple user types.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Prior to using Mindful QA we needed to find internal staff resources to test the platform. This was difficult, usually wasn't done well or completely. Since we hired MindfulQA, we have shipped software with significantly fewer issues. 

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

MindfulQA has had remarkably quick turn-around times, and is very good at estimating and communicating when they will complete the work. 

What was your primary form of communication with Mindful QA?

Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They have been extremely adaptive to our requests, which are complicated, and not always superbly documented for them. They have taken the time to learn what we are trying to do, are patient enough to provide us with feedback in the way we want (submitting tickets to our PM platform) and often go above and beyond, for example offering user experience suggestions. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something Mindful QA could have done differently?

A minor point, is that being on the West Coast, their hours don't overlap as well with the East Coast.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Product Manager of Airside Mobile, an Entrust company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Providing ditital identites to users and offer services for enterprises.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Mindful QA to accomplish?

• US based testers
• experience in mobile application testing

SOLUTION

How did you find Mindful QA?

Online Search

Why did you select Mindful QA over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Testing iOS and Android mobile application, regression / non-regression testing, specifically testing with U.S. government issued documents, testing UI/UX

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Quantity and more important quality of feedback received, be it suggestions for improvemts on the UX side, clear instructions on how to reproduce found issues or UI comparisons between iOS/Android and target design

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Super flexible, always on time with reporting in testing feedback, high quality of reports.

What was your primary form of communication with Mindful QA?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We appreciate their flexibility and turnaround time.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Mindful QA could have done differently?

nothing I can think of

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Software developer at a marketing tech company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mindful QA?

Website testing with a focus on functionality and improving user experience across browsers.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We wanted professional software testers that were very experienced, that were familiar with aspects related to our platform that entailed living in the states. We also wanted a cost structure that was simple and didn’t require long-term commitments.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We asked testers to jump right into it, as we were on a tight deadline. The project focused on three desktop browsers plus iPhone, iPad, and Android browsers, and required testers to be able to do exploratory testing both with and without test cases. We had them report functionality bugs directly in our Jira and used a shared spreadsheet for user experience feedback. After bugs were reported, our developers fixed them, and the testers tested the fixes and identified any regressions.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We had a manual tester for 20-25 hours a week, who performed and managed the testing process.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

They helped us identify issues of all sizes with our platform at a much faster rate than we anticipated, so we were able to fix, have them regression test, and ultimately move up our launch date for the new features. We got excellent feedback from our clients and customers upon launch.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow between our teams was excellent. They were completely reliable, so we didn’t feel the need to have constant updates, and they could power through the testing and deliver efficient results.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We loved the flexibility of their testing services! We didn’t find a single other American QA company that offered that level of flexibility combined with such experienced testers.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We had zero complaints at all. They were a pleasure to work with from start to finish.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Senior developer at a data and identification SaaS company, providing services to enterprise and reseller institutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mindful QA?

Across our various product suites, we had a growing need for software testing. We hired Mindful QA because we were looking for a team in the US that was willing to accommodate our flexible project needs. Our goal was to reduce bugs across our platforms and improve usability.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We looked through software testing companies lists, and gathered initial information. After speaking with a handful of companies, we chose Mindful QA based on their flexibility, straightforward pricing structure, and focus on ethics.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Their team was responsible for creating and executing test cases, determining browser/device/operating system coverage, providing user experience feedback, working with our Agile developers in testing ongoing Sprint/features, and finding and prioritizing bugs.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We chose a hybrid combination of having 2 of their manual testers in our ticket management system for collaborating, but managed by Mindful QA so we didn't have to get involved with the day-to-day management of the testers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The user experience across our platforms drastically improved, and we saw a very significant decrease in user complaints. We no longer had to worry about managing all of the testing internally, or about balancing QA needs when they varied month-to-month.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication and workflow between our teams was great. We had a shared Slack channel. We initially had check-in calls, but found that it wasn't necessary as the Slack channel and Asana/Jira ticket flow was fantastic for balancing our needs with time and availability.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They provided extremely insightful user experience feedback. They impressively pointed out bugs that we wouldn't have even thought to check. We also appreciated that they gave a portion to charity and were focused on ethics.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We didn't have any complaints.