Software Testing Trends in 2021
Modern testing solutions are evolving and revolutionising. QA is not just about finding bugs and errors anymore; it is a complex technical philosophy that also includes evaluation of a product idea, behavioural predictions, analysis of opportunities and threats, etc.
2021 promises to be a dynamic and ambitious year, so we expect some fascinating testing trends, models, and strategies to come to life. In this article, we will discuss some of the testing trends that we look forward to in the year 2021. If you are a software tester, Quality Assurance professional, or someone with an interest in testing, this article should be on your reading list.
Scriptless Test Automation
Test Automation has been on the rise with rapid web development. Manual testing alone is not enough to meet the current software development demands. A new trend in scriptless test automation is being practiced by leading industry software IT firms to maximize the scalability of their tests. It helps software testers and developers to run their test cases automatically without worrying much about the coding. These firms have achieved faster results and reduced time with scriptless test automation. This is something many IT firms are looking forward to introducing to their process.
Agile, DevOps & CI/CD
Agile & DevOps are hot topics in the Software development industry. Most organizations use the Agile framework and DevOps process for software testing. DevOps uses CI/CI principles, which helps in rapid software testing and release. The test team will verify the build at different stages of development and deploy them after verifying its working. It will continue in 2021 with more and more organizations adopting this pattern.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
Davos Economic Forum announced AI and ML as the trendiest approaches that will become the key drivers of the next industrial revolution. Speaking about software testing, AI and ML can revolutionize the way we use test data and improve bug detection algorithms. Many manual testing tasks are likely to be substituted with automation to allocate QA resources more efficiently.
QAOps
Software development processes have changed, so has the role of every individual involved in the process. The role of QA or software tester is now not limited to testing. Testers are involved in every aspect of software development. QAOps is a practice that brings developers, testers, and operation teams together. Continuous testing is combined with DevOps. Test activities along with the CI/CD pipeline and testers/QA working in parallel with the dev team are the two fundamentals of QAOps.
Big Data Testing
Applications with underlying huge volumes of consumer data should be analyzed and tested frequently. Sectors like healthcare, finance, banking, retail, and telecommunication constantly deal with big data. Therefore, the demand for big data testing will keep increasing. The specific feature of big data testing is checking of data processing success and accuracy, but not separate parts of the software product. QA engineers use commodity clusters and other specific supportive instruments to perform this task.
Internet Of Things (IoT) Testing
This powerful digital network is rapidly developing along with the 4G and 5G network standards spreading all over the world. QA engineers should be ready to test software developed for entirely new types of hardware for security, reliability, the convenience of usage, connection with other devices, etc. IoT technologies are helpful for both individual users and corporations. Transportation and logistics, machinery manufacturing, and agriculture are among those exploiting the IoT advantages to the most extent.
Chatbot Testing
Bots will continue to conquer the world as a part of robotic process automation (RAP). Bots allow minimizing expenses on support while providing a better user experience. The smooth chatbot functioning requires careful testing.
Mobile app testing automation
This trend doesn’t need much explanation. The use of mobile devices and applications is booming. Millions of different mobile apps are listed on different play stores of different operating systems. There has been the development of more and more complex applications that are able to handle different customer needs. This requires end-to-end testing. So, the trend of increased automation in mobile app testing continues into 2021.
Blockchain Testing
The most promising market technology works as a record-keeping database not only for the Bitcoin system. For example, global blockchain technology is used for supply chain management, food, shipping, and other industries. Its mission is to provide the highest security level for any economic transaction. Hence, the IT market desperately needs QA specialists with specific domain skills able to provide professional testing services.
Security Testing
Web users share lots of private information online. We login to websites and apps using Google, Apple, or Facebook accounts, enter the details of payment cards in various e-commerce sites, social security and tax numbers in online banking systems. The more technological society becomes, the more seriously they should treat sensitive data and user privacy. And QA professionals have a significant role to play in this process.
Customer Experience and Usability Testing
The global pandemic and its consequences have affected software testing, just like other tech spheres. In particular, it forced QA engineers to pay more attention to user experience. As the audience of software products grows, it becomes more diverse. More people start using new products for the first time, and it is essential to make sure that users with different levels of tech experience can figure out how this or that feature works.
Shift-Left Testing
The traditional software development model implies that the testing procedures take place at the end of the product development cycle. You can explain the concept of shift-left testing literally: shifting the testing to the left on the process scale, that is earlier during the development process. And as the experience shows, the sooner you find bugs, the easier it is to fix them.
SUMMING IT ALL UP
For many businesses this year has become the time for rethinking QA strategy to perform more efficiently in 2021 and obtain a competitive advantage. For that, it’s vital to concentrate on smart orchestration of DevOps reinforced by test automation and AI, improving test data and environment management, optimizing QA budget to meet the post-pandemic requirements.
References: lambdatest, ishir, qamadness, dzone
