Latest and Future Trends in Software Testing

“Software testers do not make software; they only make them better.” - Anonymous

Development technologies are on the rise and here to stay – and there is a distinct progression in the approaches to software testing. The professionals in this realm must rapidly adapt to the changes in software testing industry, while remaining abreast with the current and future trends in the realm. We take a closer look at some of these ‘game changing’ trends.

Agile Methodology

Digital transformation is the new big thing for companies, and they are adopting agile methodology to affect valuable changes that align with their business goals to improve Business Value with shorter Development Cycles. Agile helps businesses to deliver valuable and sustainable outcomes.

Machine Learning

This technology is about avant-garde changes to processes and workflow. In software testing, machine learning helps to identify unique and redundant test cases or what is called test suite optimization. ML helps with predictive analysis using historical data to predict core parameters within software testing, while identifying cases that can be automatically executed using log analytics. Traceability deals with achieving test coverage by extracting keywords from the RTM (Requirements Traceability Matrix), and finally defect analytics through ML to identify high risk portions of an application.

DevOps

DevOps begins the start of a development cycle, and is aimed at facilitating continuous integration, delivery, testing, and monitoring. This enables developers to understand whether the application is ‘right’ based on performance and functionalities. In addition, the testing of design and automation not only verifies any code changes, but also ensures that the changes do not disrupt the product in any manner.

Big Data

Testers within this realm ensure that the high volume and velocity of terabytes of data, are skillfully processed, and the testing is focused on functional and performance testing. In addition, the quality of these massive amounts of data is checked as well, on parameters such as completeness, accuracy, conformity, consistency, duplicity, validity, and more.

Internet of Things

The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology has brought about an increase in the number of connected devices, and is used to assess these devices for certain parameters. Compatibility Testing ensures that the devices are congruent with the system, while usability testing assesses the actual usefulness of the IoT system. The data integrity testing authenticates the reliability of the data, and the simulation of sensors is verified through the reliability and scalability testing. The data privacy controls and user authentication process goes through security testing, while performance of the connected devices is managed by performance testing. Experts predict that performance testing will soon be replaced by performance engineering as early as the year 2019.

Continuous Automation

This process of software testing enables the testers to track and control the testing needs, thereby ensuring the end product is the best quality software. Test automation uses specialized tools to match the expected results with the actual. These tools are useful for both non-functional and functional testing.

Chatbot Testing

While it is assumed that chatbots meet the functional requirements, software testing checks whether the chatbots are working as designed and programmed.

Software testers are constantly challenged to deliver better products in the shortest amount of time, since testing must align development with delivery cycles. In addition, to reducing delivery cycles, it is necessary to integrate the various portions of product development, and hence the need for integration tools to manage requirements, tasks, tests, and the tracking of bugs. Acting as the ‘warehouse’ of data, the integrated tool can be easily shared and used by multiple users. 

Conclusion

To beat competition and stay ahead in the realm, software testers and quality assurance professionals must remain abreast with the latest current and future trends in testing. The realm of software testing is growing and changing at a mind-boggling pace, and the only way to remain invulnerable to disruptions is by staying ‘attuned to the future’ and doing so now. Keeping focus on the mentioned trends will enable testers to focus their time and attention to gain the requisite skills and tools in order to be ‘future ready’.