Software testing techniques and strategies have transformed drastically in the most recent decade due to the new technologies in software development, business digitalization, and mobilization. The rapid technological advancements in the software testing industry are inspiring the testers to upgrade their skills periodically. Software testing nowadays involves step by step checks and case tests when the products are about to launch. This makes the assignment significantly more troublesome for manual testers as the amount of information to be handled to run all the experiments gets bigger.
To keep up with the increasing data and techniques, every software tester must always be aware of emerging technologies in software testing, that will enable them to present a high-grade product according to the client’s demands. Additionally, there have been significant changes in software testing trends in the past that will continue to evolve in the future.
Following are some of the software testing trends which will change the future forecast.
- Quality Engineering, the evolution of Quality Assurance
In Quality Engineering (QE), one can introduce the new testing techniques and automation in the process before the product is launched to the clients. On the contrary, in Quality Assurance (QA), the addition of too many steps and procedures makes it time-consuming.
Sometimes, QA can work as a very essential part of the process, because it takes a precise approach for testing, which is a step by step, well-ordered process. Subsequently, Quality Assurance is lacking the innovation to boost the speed of quality testing, which on the other hand, QE can do it in a short period of time with much accuracy. QE implements the latest technologies to boost the speed of quality checks in software testing.
- Testing of Internet of Things
Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the quickest developing technologies in today’s world. IoT gadgets and apps which connect to the internet are tested for security, performance, and usability. The IoT hardware is controlled by specialized programs designed according to its uses. The inbuilt program includes technologies such as RFID (Radio Frequency Code), NFC (Near Field Communication), Bluetooth, Z-wave (A low power RF technology), and WiFi. Through these technologies, and IoT gadget connects and communicates. This exposure to the web allows various vulnerabilities to attack such devices’ systems. However, the major threats are network-related including user authentication and web interface.
- Selenium 4: The Portable framework
In consumer web products such as websites or web applications, cross-browser testing plays a pivotal role to the extent that selenium automation testing is concerned. The product is tested across various combinations of operating systems, web browsers, and devices. The open-source web framework Selenium is used broadly for automation testing and Selenium automation testing which will thrive further in the coming years.
Selenium 4 has various new features and improvements that will make automation testing and cross-browser testing more delightful. With continuous testing evolving into a business imperative and selenium test automation becoming a part of the process and delivery, it is necessary to have a cultural and mindset shift within the QA team. Selenium 4 has new directives for acquiring the Selenium Grid, docker support, etc.
- Transformation of Agile Testing
This procedure includes working with different small teams in cooperation. The team tests continuously. Agile testing provides real-time feedback on the respective processes with much shorter feedback time. With much less test documentation, it is easy to analyze the test results and focus on the essence of the test. Agile testing is simple, fast, and user friendly, which provides real-time feedback during the implementation of the product. However, most of the conventional methods provide feedback after the implementation of the product.
- DevOps for continuous improvement
DevOps is a term utilized for a specific set of guidelines or standards to reduce the testing time, which is applied to all the software development steps from its progression to operations. Instead of continuous integration, DevOps implements a continuous improvement cycle, through which a software development model needs to undergo periodically. In the coming years, more organizations are probably going to adjust to these sets of standards to enhance their overall performance and quality of products.
- Voice Assisted Technology
In the past few months, there have been numerous launches of smart speakers with voice-assisted technology. You now get to experience Voice-assisted technology not only as a part of smart speakers but also in mobile phones. Waking-up a device can be done using the appropriate wake-up commands, you no longer need to press a key for the same.
With the growing adoption of this technology, companies are more interested in investing and improving several aspects of voice technology i.e. personalization, removal of ambient noise from voice samples, dialect, etc. Controversies related to accuracy and privacy could be one of the aspects that might stagnate the advancement of voice-assisted technology.
According to Google, currently, 27% of the global population is making use of voice search on mobile. Voice technology testing is tricky and automation testing frameworks require to integrate ‘voice’ in their roadmap.
- Big Data testing
In this brilliant period of rapidly growing technology, customers and providers upload and transfer terabytes of data. Managing such a huge amount of information needs a special approach for testing. Due to its high volume of size, Big Data cannot be tested using traditional computing techniques. Big Data testing has become essential for businesses with a large amount of data. The primary target is to test the data for quality to begin with. The quality checks include Meta Data Analysis, validation on data extraction, referential integrity, dashboard validation, data correctness validation, and business rule validation.
- Multi-Device Testing
Continuous increased penetration of smartphones and the introduction of a broad range of IoT devices have made multi-device more eminent than ever before. Customers now have a choice to access ‘the same set of information’ from smart speakers, smartphones, wearables, or other types of IoT devices.
In 2020, automation testing teams have the accountability of executing automation tests on a series of devices, incorporating smart home appliances. Selenium automation testing and Cross browser testing will also be crucial as multi-device and multi-platform testing continues to be one of the dominant software testing trends of 2020.
- Demands for Cybersecurity and Risk Compliance
The digital revolution also brings increasing security threats along with it. Chief information officers and chief technology officers from almost every firm across all sectors pursue to acknowledge the seriousness of security testing of their applications, software, network, and systems. Software developing teams also work with their associates so that their commodities are more resilient to threats, making the cybersecurity shield reach to the next level.
Security testing not only helps secure transactions (money or data) but also protects the end-users. The increasing demands for cybersecurity and risk compliance emphasize the importance of QA testing organizations to empower their teams with the knowledge, tools, and skills required to engage in security testing. As cyber threats can take place at any moment, in any form, security testing will continue to be an emerging trend in software testing.
- Automation in mobile application testing
One of the most crucial parts of an individual’s life, the mobile phone comes with various OS platforms and software built in it. There is an app for every requirement and a preinstalled OS on which a mobile phone works. The apps need to be tested before it gets installed on a mobile phone. The apps which require internet connectivity should be tested thoroughly to avoid security breaches in the future. Apps with permissions of accessing contacts, account details are more vulnerable to hacker attacks. The testing phase of applications includes functionality, speed, simplicity, practicality, creativity, interactivity, defect rate, and share-ability. Testing versatile applications in all the above phases is considerably more intricate than testing websites, because there are native apps, web apps, and hybrid apps to choose between, and they are each built differently. Keeping up with the continuous app updates needs a fast pace platform for testing mobile applications thereby making the mobile app testing automation a vital part.
- Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Microservices test automation
API testing is one of the most demanding parts of software QA testing because it works to assure that the digital world runs seamlessly and in an efficient manner. API testing is one of the areas where automated testing is highly recommended because API automation can bridge the gap between the old and new testing technologies. The Microservice technique includes developing software to explicitly test for a specific condition. Various types of services can be generated and by building up a connection between them, the entire task can be partitioned into parts. In this, each service performs a particular set of processes. This gives the flexibility to make improvements in any smaller particular area of the application which requires changes, instead of changing the entire software architecture. And the real advantage is that these services are independent of one another, which makes them separately executable and testable.
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
The mortal combination of AI and Machine Learning (ML) is used more extensively for making automation testing better. In the near future, Artificial Intelligence will be universally present across all divisions of technology and will also play a big role in data mining. It will stimulate the test automation process, incorporating cross-browser testing. AI and ML will be an indispensable part of test execution and test creation. This will not only request a mindset shift but the skill sets shift will be the key to automation testing. This signifies that QA tools used for cross-browser testing and Selenium automation testing will have been evolving over a period of time. QA tools that are based on AI/ML technologies will accelerate UI/GUI testing for web applications or websites. Therefore, AI & ML will act as a stimulant to revolutionize the automation testing industry in 2020.
- Spidering AI
AI Spidering works on advanced Machine Learning-based tools to automatically crawl the application whenever you are working on a new project. This smart tool automatically analyzes the current working pattern of the application with the previous patterns.
AI/ML is already recognized as an essential part of automation testing. AI Spidering seizes AI in automation testing notch as it facilitates automation in the test scriptwriting process. Automation tools that practice AI Spidering gather important data about the features being used in the application, for example, recording videos of test scenarios, computing execution time, capturing screenshots, etc. These steps are repeated several times and the data is used to train the Machine Learning models regarding the working patterns.
AI Spidering is remarkably useful for developers and testers as it gives knowledge about the parts of the application which worked and which did not. This helps to concentrate on a section of implementation flagged as a ‘potential issue’ by the tool.
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Robotic Process Automation is recognized as a subset of Artificial Intelligence. It is commonly used in regions like banking, finance, etc. to automate jobs related to software that is monotonous and doesn’t require any human intervention. This is done by setting up software ‘robots’ that seize data and execute the routine tasks.
RPA software is now progressively moving beyond task & process automation and is being utilized across different industries. It is envisioned as a tool for the transformation of businesses. RPA was examined as the fastest-growing firm in the software category and it will continue its rapid growth in the coming years.
The rapid growth of RPA can be associated with the power of process automation that can be applied to legacy systems in organizations. Robotic Process automation lies in the classification of software testing trends that will reformulate process automation for a range of industries.
- Rise of Open Source Tools
As businesses are adopting Open Source Tools for better performance for the execution of agile, test automation, and DevOps, Open Source Tools will rule the software testing industry in the coming years. There are numerous advantages of utilizing Open Source Tools, as they are free to use, and readily available for the public. It can be effectively customizable and is more flexible than other expensive testing tools. With numerous integrations for test automation, users can also contribute to designing, so it truly gives you the flexibility to design it the way you need. A rising issue related to Open Source Tools could be that of security, as being accessible to the public, anyone can customize it using dark coding to make it vulnerable. However, continuous assessment of finding out the bugs can be a proven way to avoid security issues in Open Source Tools.
These are our accumulated list of the most prominent software testing trends in 2020 focused on the strategies and standards of Software Testing Trends that will assist in changing and speeding up the procedure of the software testing industry as well as has a huge scope of improvement in the future. Regardless of how the digital transformation is proceeding to turn out in the coming years, it is certain that software products enterprises, will carry on to witness adjustments and changes. As a result, QA teams, leaders, and professionals must constantly evolve in order to stay agile in this ever-changing industry.
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