Success Story: Dolphin
Technology delivering independence
Find out how Qual IT protected the quality of a new product delivery whilst upskilling the internal test team...
Need: To ensure the testing of a new product was completed successfully to protect its quality and provide resource capacity for implementing internal test process improvements and upskilling of the internal test team.
Solution: An experienced offshore testing solution to take advantage of different time zones and scale up test resources quickly.
Outcome: Overall quality and process improvements with Qual IT’s support, and the delivery of a good quality product, on time.
UK-headquartered Dolphin Computer Access provides assistive technology to people with vision and print impairments worldwide. “With over 160 million visually impaired people and 600 million dyslexic or learning disabled people, that’s no small challenge but we’re determined to make a difference and have been working hard on that goal since Dolphin started,” says Dolphin’s Managing Director, Noel Duffy.
The technology Dolphin delivers provides independence to people with impairments. That could be anything from a customer securing their first job in industry, to being able to read their mail again having lost their sight in later life, and for others being able to access the same information as their classmates, and write their school work easily.
Quality improvements and resourcing
Dolphin’s Quality Manager, Isabel Evans, says the company has a broad and challenging product development programme, “We build, test, ship and support assistive software that enables our customers to access information online and in documents in alternative formats. This includes SaySo, our reading and writing toolbar for people with dyslexia, and our Guide software that offers simple talking computing for seniors with sight loss, enabling them to access email, internet, and documents.”
The company wanted to implement improvements in their test process, as well as using their in-house experts to help train a larger test team.“We needed to implement test process improvements, and wanted to use our in-house experts to help train a larger test team. We also did not have enough test resource to complete the projects in progress. Additionally, we had a new product, SaySo, under development.
“To ensure the testing was completed as well as possible, protect the quality of the new product, and provide resource capacity for implementing process improvements, we needed to outsource some of the testing,” says Isabel.
Product delivered and processes improved
Having worked previously with Qual IT on past projects, Isabel had confidence the company could meet Dolphin’s testing needs.
Qual IT’s location also had some benefits. “The advantage of working UK to New Zealand included overnight test runs, saving elapsed time,” says Isabel.
“Having an experienced team demonstrating how the test design and reporting of coverage could be done also provided useful examples to the new UK in-house team.”
“The Dolphin Quality Team was able to deliver overall quality and process improvements with Qual IT’s support, and overall they helped Dolphin deliver SaySo, a good quality product, on time. It has been a successful relationship that has taken us through the last couple of years very well,” concludes Isabel.
managed a smooth handover.”
“More than anything else I personally needed a strong test manager who I could trust and rely on to get the job done who I did not have to manage, who would regularly check-in and come to me with recommendations when things got sticky, not with problems. I got that in spades and a safe pair of hands.
“I also recognised the need to have a fall back plan and the Qual IT organisation provided that. In fact, all the resources from Qual IT were of a very high standard.”