Top 6 Trends in Software Testing
The proportion of budget allocated to software testing and QA is predicted to grow by 40 percent in 2017 according to the Worldwide Software Testing Practices Report for 2015–2016. On average, organizations spend much lesser on testing when compared to other departments in the IT, but avoidable costs of failure often account for more of their IT budgets. These paralyzing expenses give a compelling reason for organizations to stay ahead of key software testing trends and reduce failures. As the software development landscape evolves, testing processes must also adapt to the client’s requirements and quality assurance needs. Here are some of the top software testing trends to watch out for.
Era of Smart Devices – IoT Testing
The world is increasingly interconnected with sensors present everywhere from footwear, fitness products, to home appliances and security systems that lay a foundation for smart cities. Newer connected devices that are introduced to the world daily push the app environment to move beyond desktops, PC, smartphones and tablets to just about every connectable device one can imagine.
Once an app fails, it takes a direct hit on its digital currencies (i.e., reviews, ratings) that seals the fate of the business. The companies that continue to emphasize a greater focus on QA and software testing will ultimately be the brands that win.
Open-source testing tools
Operating under limited budgets and to capitalize on the community-driven support, we saw a lot of interest and investments with Open Source in recent years. Apple making its programming language “Swift” and Microsoft making its .Net platform as open-source would justify the trend. As more big players and new start-ups embracing open source too, Softcrylic was early to recognize this trend and as a result, created automate-on (automation framework) based on Selenium in 2012. In 2016, we expect to see more big players choose the open-source path.
Greater focus on security
Software security has always been one of the top priorities for web and mobile applications. Recent incidents at Bangladesh central bank heist, LinkedIn hack, even giant names in the Silicon Valley have fallen due to security flaws so there is a pressing need for better QA to catch with the growth of mobility and IOT. So there will be greater focus on software security in the coming years.
Context driven testing
Each user has wide variety of options to access information using different devices. So it has become vital for organizations to optimize information accessibility, want to create the centralized software & hardware of test environment. The businesses further have to adopt context-driven testing to cover all aspects of software testing requirements. According to software testing gurus in the industry, the most wanted testers in the coming years will be the ones that can bring the wide array of skills to the table for any given context or situation.
Continuous Integration testing
In this methodology, testing is done in small increments like a production environment with code integration and aggregation happening at frequent intervals. This kind of method approach helps the testers to identify bugs early, measure the impact of a change and determine whether it actually meets consumer’s expectations. Read about Testing Strategies for Continuous Delivery
Mobile app testing will gain more steam
As apple app store and android play store approval processes become more stringent, mobile app testing will gain importance. As a result, instead of waiting for customer reviews, ratings and feedbacks to fix issues there should be more investment in QA. More investments coming toward cloud-based device farms and new entrants like of Google’s Cloud Test Lab and Amazon’s AWS Device Farm will have a price pressure on other cloud-based device farms vendors.
Comparing with the last year, we have seen a big shift towards rapid development and security testing of test automation. Will these trends stay relevant? Or just fads. What are your predictions? Let us know.
