Top 5 Software Testing Trends To Follow in 2019

Declared by “Forrester” as “The Year of Enterprise DevOps” while recording 97% Agile adoption, 2018 will be remembered as an important year for software testing. Stepping further into 2019, with considerations to several new software testing trends, it is safe to say that more strategic landmarks will be reached. Taking this into account, here are some software testing trends the QA Symphony team predicts to materialize in 2019.

2018 brought about advancements to the testing approaches and techniques applied in the market. QA teams constantly needed to improve their skills sets to match the rapid technological advances that play a crucial role in the way their company delivers software.

What Does 2019 Hold?

Costumer experience is highly important and will take center stage in 2019. For organizations hoping to grow, high-quality software has become the table stakes, even as the ease at which technology can be developed and released, at scale has substantially become democratized. As the year runs down, QA and development team need to concentrate on the following trends if they want to stay at the front line:

Emphasis on the Customer Experience

We have gone past days when testing was merely about bug finding. Its purpose now is to make certain that customers are satisfied while achieving business outcomes.

A study by Walker proved that by 2020, customer experience will be the key differentiator for consumers when it comes to product choices. Customers are more expectant now than at any other time – and the advance of areas like performance and DevOps are in the pursuit of creating a great end-user experience.

With Performance engineering, customer experiences can be exceeded in 2019. Performance engineering as an example deals with observing how the entire system (hardware, software, configuration etc) work together to generate business value.

AI Finds its Footing in Business and QA

The rise of automation and Artificial intelligence was predicted in last year’s trends. Nevertheless, it has been included this year as companies will analyze how artificial intelligence applies to their business. According to The World Quality report, 55% of respondents said that this was their main problem with setting up AI projects.

With regards to QA, more companies are expected to adopt machine learning techniques in areas such as predictive analytics (predicting future outcomes of the testing process based on historical data), defect analytics (highlighting at-risk areas of an application) and test suite optimization (identifying redundant test cases).

The use of AI in testing might require newer skills which will eventually lead to organizations creating new roles for AI QA strategists, data scientists, as well as AI test experts in QA and testing teams.

Instant Apps Take the Spotlight

Instant apps are native mobile apps that are smaller in size. Thus, more convenient for the user, being that they no longer have to download a standalone app. The demand for better user experience and shorter load times are constantly increasing.

Google’s introduction of Android App Bundles allows developers to modularize their apps and deliver features on demand; this will make more organizations adopt the Instant Apps approach.

QA Decentralization

The QA and testing department has been fragmented as a result of the transition to agile and DevOps. QA is now embedded into cross-functional teams. So, quality is dependent on the team members’ skills and their responsibility to integrate testing into their product lifecycle.

Continuous Improvement

The trends mentioned above have contributed to the rise in the adoption of Agile & DevOps over the past few years. Testing is an early part of the development process. More companies will adopt more agile/DevOps models to help them release faster and receive quick feedback. Other companies will take it a step further by adopting approaches such as continuous testing and continuous monitoring.

An attitude of “continuous improvement” will enhance the overall performance and quality of products by teams.

Noteworthy Omissions for 2019

Quality Engineering over Quality Assurance

QA professionals will enhance their technical skills and include some automation-related work organized by quality engineers. The role of Quality Assurance will deviate to implementing the latest technologies to boost the speed of quality checks. This is a trend that will come into play in the coming years.

Big Data Testing

With big data testing, testers have to verify that terabytes of data are successfully processed. Additionally, the aggressive increase in quantity is making it more tasking for companies. More likely, QA will have to deal with validating the quality, accuracy, and consistency of huge datasets.

These trends above demonstrate the crucial transformation both companies and QA is undergoing. The expectations of consumers will continue to shoot up. Organizations must adapt and deliver if they must remain in the front line and grow beyond 2019.

Charter Global

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