As true professional nerds, we always try to go the extra mile, or write that line of code less, depending on how you look at it. As passionate mobile app developers, we never stop learning. Besides the fact that we can program well, we can spar well at Coffee IT.

Sometimes we talk about the latest games or gadgets, sometimes about our own internal processes to see how we can improve them. We became so good at these sparring sessions that we immediately turned it into an official corporate event: the Coffee I/O.

Coffee I/O stands for: Coffee Input Output (maybe we were inspired by Google's developer conference; “Google I/O”). The Coffee I/O sessions aim to facilitate joint sparring sessions in an interactive way. In other words: have a nice discussion about interesting nerd topics. During these sessions knowledge sharing is central between the different teams. This can be anything, for example a new development tool that may be interesting to use or an organizational issue. All input and output come from the joint Coffee IT team. In other words: a good piece of co-creation!

QA & App testing

This I/O was all about Quality Assurance (QA) and app testing. Testing the security and performance of an app is important to us. They partly determine the success of the app and also guarantee the security of the app user. Of course we already have a thorough test plan for all our apps at Coffee IT. The quality of the apps is regularly checked and we have different app testing procedures.

The projects are getting bigger and scalable for thousands of active users, making QA and app testing more important. A good QA strategy starts long before the development of the app: during the design phase. Important choices must be made during the design phase, such as user roles, but also security layers and any trust by design principles (look at the Roompot Digital Key app for a good example of this). During and after the development process there are several security and performance audits and an app should actually be tested consistently after operating system updates, for example.

The team showed its best side again on Friday. We have poster sheets full of inspiration about possible (additional) tools per phase in the development process. These tips & tricks will further improve the quality and security of our apps. In addition, they will simplify the production process between the developers and the app designers. We are already a well-oiled machine, but we like pragmatic and smart solutions that take ourselves and our apps to the next level.

After the Coffee I/O

We wouldn't be called Coffee IT if there wasn't a suitable party to end. Professionalization, innovation and quality remain spearheads for our apps and corporate culture: but team building and happy colleagues are just as important to us.

Due to the extreme heat, the activity was quickly devised: a large water fight on the roof of our office. Jealous? You can register for the next water fight via this link*.

* Participation in the Coffee I/O is mandatory.