2021 is the year of hope after what 2020 threw at us and the impact it had on our everyday existence.
Although, taking us towards better times, technology saw tremendous progress and growth. New norms and new ways of working meant new challenges but innovation and success were not elusive.
Behind ground breaking processes and products, you will find carefully evolved, exhaustive testing methodologies. Without good, all round testing, there can be no smooth sailing in this world of quick results and blink and miss opportunities.
So what are the software testing trends at the forefront of our ever evolving world of technology?
Let us find out.
Automation takes over manual testing and this has been the way forward for some time now. What better path to follow to get this done other than AI and ML? This brings us to the first trend of 2021!
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
Smart speakers and voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Home and through several such products ruling the market, AI and ML have reached the homes and touched the hearts of millions of people in a fun interactive manner, making their presence felt and slowly becoming an important part of everyday life. AI and ML have the power to revolutionize testing methodologies, test data creation and usage, improve the bug and error detection methods, and most importantly help automate the manual tasks.
Internet of Things (IoT) is getting bigger by the day
IoT refers to the billions of physical devices that act as smart devices and connect to the internet allowing flow of data. The number of connected devices is expected to be 27.1 billion in 2021, and by 2025 it might touch 75 billion. This is the measure of expansion expected in this sector and hereby the growing need to better test all aspects specially the security vulnerabilities as these devices are most prone to hacking attacks. Smart watches, health monitors, smart factory equipment, home security systems are just some examples that prove the versatile usage and importance of this segment.
DevOps is here to stay
Companies are now interested, more than ever before, in implementing and adopting the DevOps culture and everything it brings to the table. DevOps has proved it’s point and helped the bigshots dominate the market by quick, error free, continuous integration and continuous delivery process. Immediate feedback on smaller chunks of code which is then merged with the master branch after meeting the test success criteria, ready to be deployed — all automated in the pipelines is just so efficient. A never seen before close knit relationship between development, testing and operations (called QAOps approach) works wonders and is definitely something that you would want to try to achieve in the long run.
Usability Testing for mobile applications
2020 moved all things to virtual experiences through various online platforms and applications. All that continues into 2021. To create and deliver engaging, useful and seamless experiences, extensive testing is needed. Any and all flaws have to be caught and fixed before the application is launched because the competition is severe and there is no market for an under performing platform. Along with all this, ease of use is a major driving factor for success. The users decide what they like and reject whatever fails to stand up to the high standards set by the many fabulous on point experiences on offer.
Performance Engineering
Building on the mobile application boom, comes in performance engineering needs. Unforgiving demands mean that the applications have to be quick, responsive and do what they promise. A good average page load time as per google is under 2 seconds. Imagine the standards set! Seamless integration of hardware, software, configuration, security, performance and usability is what performance engineering takes the responsibility for, to deliver higher than user expectations.
Blockchain Testing is gaining importance
With digital currencies gaining prominence, so is the need for related services and processes to work effectively, securely and reliably. Blockchain technology that helps enable smart contracts and prevent fraud is very promising. It’s mission of providing the highest security level for any economic transaction makes it even more sought after.
There are more to look out for like chat bot testing, big data testing, headless testing, shift left testing, needs for cloud based solutions, and even accessibility testing. All are further advancements in the areas we discussed above.
The aim is to make the services and products secure, quick, easy to use and available to as many people as possible without the barrier of what they know or do not know. Reliability and security remain at the helm of all operations.
