Did you know that the worldwide software development spending in said to grow by 8.2% in 2020, and reach a total of $466 billion?
Well, it is no surprise that software development is going to bounce multiple strides in 2020. The revolution in various software engineering domains, including software testing solutions has undergone noteworthy development. For the same reason, software testing processes are expected to be more advanced and sophisticated by the end of the year.
There was a point when businesses were more about revenue and less about quality, but the times have changed now. Organizations have now realized the true potential of quality in their services, and that different domain can co-exist with each other.
But, before we get into the impressive software testing trends for 2020, it is important to note what it is about, why it is needed in today’s work space evolution, and how an apt software testing company can take advantage of it.
What Is Software Testing?
Software testing involves the scrutinization, evaluation, revision of the actual results from the demanded results right from the start of the development process. It includes the administration of the software components to assess its performance and assure that it is operating in the required manner.
To make it more simple, software testing is the execution of a program to find any software bugs and errors in it and to evaluate if the program does what is required. It is an important step before the software deployment since it validates and verifies if the software program is compatible and qualified enough to be launched in the user market. The design and development of software have to meet the business needs and technical requirements.
Why Is Software Testing An Important Consideration?
According to a report, 63% of users report quality as a blocker in the production processes, and 29 times the quality of an application is hampered in the DevOps cycle.
Moreover, only 1 in 3 organizations includes quality in their planning phase and only 1 in 5 businesses test every code before it is deployed in the system.
Considering factors like the value of a project from a quality engineering perspective, such issues can lessen the visibility across the functions, not receive the required investments, and create a negative image for the fraternity at large. That is why the required software procedures must be assessed before their deployment.
So, What Does Quality Driven Engineering Effort Mean?
For any business function, what matters the most is the quality of the process. After reading ample literature on the top software testing trends, it gets confusing on how to get to the desired state.
The ladder to exceptional quality-driven engineering is to include every personnel accomplishing their set of goals. A tester should check through the status quo, see through the quality of the process, how fast can it be done, how can it translate into the long-term vision of a product, and provide a common thinking ground to the organization and users.
The Top Software Testing Trends To Consider
The following are the top software testing trends to watch out for.
The Amalgamation of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Testing Procedures
Intelligent systems will occupy the top position on the software testing radar in 2020. AI and ML make software testing smarter and more reliable. Teams can use applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to optimize automation strategies, indulge in efficient operation, and execute the codes faster.
For example, quality assurance technicians employed AI/ML methods to predict the test quality, prioritize test cases, detect test methods, classify errors, and interact with test applications.
Therefore, AI tech will find its role in the ubiquitous segments of software testing methodologies with various organizations. With the escalating importance of AI in software testing, it will be relevant in studying the log analytics, test suite optimization, ensure test requirements coverage, predictive analytics, and defect analytics.
Test Automation in Agile systems
According to a report, 44% of IT companies automated 50% or more of the testing operation in 2019. Indeed, test automation in no longer an offshore concept in the pool of software testing. in 2020, automated testing will be adopted by many organizations, to fulfill the demand for Quality at Speed.
Test automation aids teams in faster detection of bugs, performing repetitive tasks, providing continuous feedback, and ensuring test coverage. Organizations using test automation in software testing phenomena will save a significant amount of cost, time and resources.
As for the test automation developers, they need to be versatile with these processes. They need to easily adapt and use it at testing level, provide smarter frameworks, ensure full test coverage and quality bug detection, enable cross-platform testing for web, API, mobile, and desktop automation, integrate with AI/CD tools and intelligent dashboards for continuous testing and quality analytics insights.
Big Data
Big Data has truly transformed various business sectors like technology, healthcare, banking, retail, telecom, media, and so many other segments. With the increasing amount of data, Big Data helps in optimizing decision making processes.
For industries that have huge volumes of data to deal with, they can indulge in better data validations and testing using Big Data. It also helps in enhancing the developing market strategies. Since more and more industries are including Big Data in their workspace realms, Big Data testing is no longer a new undertaking. In 2020, testing Big Data applications will witness a rise due to reasons like wide adoption and robust processes.
QAOps Changes in the Light of DevOps
Did you know what DevOps is all about?
It is a set of software practices that combines development (Dev) and information technology operations (Ops). The ultimate goal of DevOps is to shorten the SDLC cycle while focussing on building features, fixing bugs faster, and frequent updates in the process. In simple words, DevOps aids in better collaboration between the tech operationalists and developers.
QAOps might be a new concept to you, but it functions in the same directive as DevOps. QAOps helps in improving the communication flow between the testing engineers and developers.
How?
By integrating software testing into the CI/CD pipeline. This improves the process as a whole and helps in alignment of the same goals between QA engineers and developers, instead of letting the QA team work in complete isolation.
IoT Testing
Internet of Things has truly transformed the way humans used to interact with their devices and how devices interacted with each other. IoT is everywhere, right from security processes, to programming, education, healthcare, manufacturing, etc. IoT testing will help in improving the security, ease of use, versatility, trustworthiness, compatibility of devices, monitoring connection delay, scalability, data integrity evaluation, device authenticity, and much more.
The IoT testers need to work a lot in this domain, right from communication protocols to operating systems and multiple combinations of the different elements of an IoT system. Therefore, the IoT engineers need to enhance their skills regarding the security and performance of of devices in IoT testing.
Cybersecurity and Risk Compliance
The Digital revolution is great for the tech world, but it also raises questions pertaining to security threats and loss of data. Across all the enterprises, the CIOs and CTOs must understand the importance of security testing of their software, applications, network, and systems. Also, software development teams need to partner with other departments to make the system more resilient to security threats and improve cybersecurity as well.
Final Words
These are the top emerging trends of software testing that enterprises need to look out for in 2020. Furthermore, organizations need to remain aware of the recent developments taking place in the industry and keep up with them. Remember, there is some transformation taking place in the tech world every day and to stay ahead of the competition, you need to equipped and versatile about it.
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