The week before launch is when small problems become expensive ones. A structured pre-launch QA pass catches broken flows, device-specific bugs and missing tracking while there is still time to fix them calmly.
Use this checklist as a starting point and adapt it to your product.
Key takeaways
- ✓Test the journeys that make or lose money first: signup, checkout, contact and login.
- ✓Cover the devices and browsers your real users have, not just the ones on your desk.
- ✓Treat analytics, redirects and monitoring as part of QA; they are easy to forget.
Core functionality
Walk every critical journey end to end, including the unhappy paths:
- ✓Forms submit, validate input and show helpful error messages
- ✓Signup, login, password reset and logout work
- ✓Payments and checkout succeed and handle declined cards
- ✓Emails and notifications arrive and link to the right place
- ✓Every navigation link and button goes where it should
Devices, browsers and screen sizes
Build a device list from your analytics or your target market. Test on real phones where possible, including an older, slower device, and check layouts from small phones to large desktop screens. Safari on iOS deserves special attention because it behaves differently from other browsers.
Performance and accessibility
Measure page speed and Core Web Vitals on mobile, not just on a fast office connection. Check that images and videos are compressed and sized for the screen.
Run an accessibility pass: keyboard navigation, visible focus, color contrast, form labels and alt text. It improves the experience for every user and reduces legal risk.
Security and data basics
- ✓HTTPS everywhere, with no mixed-content warnings
- ✓No API keys or secrets exposed in front-end code
- ✓Security headers configured on the server
- ✓Test and staging data removed from production
- ✓Backups and a rollback plan in place
Release readiness
Confirm analytics and conversion tracking fire correctly, redirects from any old URLs are in place, the sitemap and robots.txt are correct, and error monitoring is switched on. Agree who is on call for the first days after launch.
Modus Venture is a US-founded creative digital agency. If you would rather have an experienced team handle this for you, see our software testing & qa services.