Top 5 Software Testing Trends for 2018
In our previous post, we took a look at the current test automation trends and tools, which help us identify the favourite packages and frameworks in our industry. In this post, we’ll try to predict the future based on the latest Google Trends, various articles, and webinars on the Internet.
#1 API/Web Service Testing
When it comes to web/mobile application testing, a lot of the Regression Tests focus on UI testing and test the user workflow on GUI. There’s no need to explain why these tests are so flaky: expensive to maintain, etc. Since the popularity of the Testing Pyramid is rising this year again, more and more UI tests are moved to a lower layer. To be able to implement this shift, we need to develop and test new web services/microservices. Most of these services are tested by developers, either manually via PostMan or other API Testing tools. I think we can all agree, that testing these services manually is not the ideal solution. We need to implement API Tests and integrate them into our CI/CD process to reduce the time to market
A lot of the new job posts ask for “Web Service Testing/API Testing” skills, so here’s a bit of advice: Get your hands dirty with this topic, learn more about this area and try to implement some tests. There are many free tools available for testing (RestAssured, Mocha + Chai, etc.).
#2 Performance Testing
By increasing the number of new web services/APIs, not only the amount of functional/integration tests will increase. To ensure the smooth performance and the fast response of these services we need to implement new Performance tests for them.
Hint: Try to dig deeper in this field, learn more about response times, thresholds, latencies, and try to create your first performance tests in Gatling, Jmeter, etc.
#3 Shift from QA/Dev to DevOps
The DevOps topic has gained significant interest over the past five years.
As you can see on Google Trends, the popularity of DevOps likely continues in the next year as well. More and more QAs and Developers shift to this position to help the team to speed up the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) and reduce the time to market. Since the purpose of this new role is to reduce the time from implementation to operation, we can expect more automation and integration tools to be included in our pipeline.
Here’s the hint: get involved in Jenkins/Travis or in other CI/CD tools, pipelines, logs, and in analyzing them. Try to create your own Docker image/container and try to integrate it into your pipeline.
#4 Mobile Test Automation
There’s no doubt, that popularity of the mobile apps — so as the Mobile Testing- is increasing:
First of all, there are thousands of mobile apps and vendors both in AppStore and in Google Play, so the competition is high. Furthermore, companies have to act fast and publish their apps as soon as possible. Obviously, manual testing of each version of the app is slow, and you don’t have all the supported mobile devices at your desk. The solution is to automate these tests and integrate them into one of the Cross-browser testing tools (Sauce Labs, BrowserStack, etc.).
With the spread of mobile devices and applications Visual Testing can play an important role: not all the tests should be done manually, or via the mentioned cloud services, companies should invest in the Visual Testing frameworks as well.
#5 AI, Blockchain
Concerning AI (Artificial Intelligence), we’re in the very early ages of using AI in testing. In the future we might be able to use it as a tool, to compare screens, or maybe even workflows in our app. But there’s no need to panic here, at this stage they won’t take our job for sure; they still need to learn a lot. Some of the new tools already use AI differently: to predict the most buggy field/area in our app (based on the previously found bugs), to generate statistics for our tests, etc. In 2018 we should take the opportunity to look at AI more closely, how helpful it can be in our daily work.
Blockchain and smart contracts should be on your radar for sure, it is going to be a lot more mainstream. With the increasing popularity of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, there’s a trend that they’ll be integrated into more apps.
Try to learn more about cryptocurrencies:
- how to buy, and sell them,
- learn more about the security,
- dig deeper into the mechanism: how they work,
- how can you exchange them, etc.
Bottom Line
Please, don’t panic after reading this post. These trends/predictions are based on the latest Google Trends; the future is unpredictable. Therefore don’t stop your daily routine by learning more about these technologies, but keep them on your list. Try to integrate them into your current work, and you’ll be safe.
Do you have some other predicts for 2018? Share it with us; we’d be more than happy to read your prophecy.
Inspiration
Originally published at https://testautonation.com.
