Industry overview
What is shaping software
Software and SaaS companies live and die by product-market fit, pricing and retention. Users' real workflows matter more than feature lists.
- Product-led growth relies on fast time to value
- Pricing and packaging strongly affect conversion
- Churn often starts with onboarding
Client background
A healthcare software company, working in India & United Kingdom. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.
- Organisation
- A healthcare software company
- Sector
- Software
- Team engaged
- IT & Development
- Services
- Software testing & QA, Cloud & DevOps services, Custom software development
Client challenge
Releases frequently broke existing features, and clients complained after updates. Clients in the NHS and private healthcare were losing patience, and one major client had threatened to review its contract. Each release introduced new bugs, and a major client had threatened to leave after repeated problems in production.
Research objectives
- Deliver on the brief: reducing release problems with test automation.
- Design around the real needs of screens.
- Define requirements and success criteria the solution would be tested against.
- Deliver a reliable, secure solution the team can run and extend.
Target audience
The work focused on 200 screens.
- screens200
Audiences we typically reach in software
Trial and paying usersAdmins and buyersChurned customersProspectsPartners and integrators
Geographic coverage
Coverage: India & United Kingdom. Markets: India and United Kingdom.
- India
- United Kingdom
Research methodology
An iterative delivery approach: discovery, design, build and test in short cycles, with the client reviewing each step.
- 1Brief
- 2Test strategy
- 3Automated regression suite
- 4CI pipeline
- 5Insight
We defined critical journeys, automated regression tests and integrated them into the release pipeline. We worked with product owners to identify the journeys that mattered most to clinicians and administrators, automated those first, and ran the suite on every code change. Manual exploratory testing continued for new features. Tests ran automatically on every code change, and a short release checklist was agreed with the client.
Software testing & QACloud & DevOps servicesCustom software development
Sampling strategy
- screens
- 200
- Users and stakeholders from every affected team took part in discovery workshops and acceptance testing.
Data collection
- Requirements were gathered through workshops, process walk-throughs and a review of existing systems and data.
Data quality & validation
- Peer code review on every change
- Automated and manual testing
- User-acceptance testing with the client
- Release checklist and rollback plan
Data analysis
- Usage and performance monitoring after launch
- Defect and support-ticket trends
- Process time before and after
Key findings
- Post-release defects fell sharply, and the company moved to more frequent, predictable releases.
- Developers also gained confidence to refactor older parts of the code.
Automated tests made speed and quality possible together.
Recommendations
- Build on the core insight: automated tests made speed and quality possible together.
- Focus effort where the evidence was strongest: post-release defects fell sharply, and the company moved to more frequent, predictable releases.
- Re-measure after the changes to confirm the effect.
Business impact
- The at-risk client renewed its contract after seeing the improvement in release quality.
What changed in the business as a result of the work. Impact is described qualitatively.
Deliverables & next steps
- Deployed solution with documentation and handover
- Support and maintenance plan
- Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
- A natural follow-on question: where does the UX get in the way?
Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.