We hope you’ve all had a relaxing holiday season and a fantastic start into the new year. Now it’s high time to get ready for test automation again. Let’s start by looking at some upcoming test automation trends we need to watch out for in 2016. Ranorex is ready for these new testing challenges!
1. Quality Enhancement and Cost Optimization
Today’s technology makes it easy for us to compare and review software products. As quality expectations rise, it’s become an increasing challenge to meet the customers’ exceeding demands. Providing the best possible software quality is always linked to increasing development and testing costs. To optimize these costs, it is important to shift from manual to automated testing environments. Yet user interface testing, a cost intensive part within the testing process, is still often done manually. Using functional test automation for this part would tremendously increase the software quality and optimize testing costs. This topic will become even more prominent in 2016.
2. Cross-Device and Cross-Technology Testing
When software was still a rather simple idea, testing was no magic. Testing of a standalone instance was pretty easy and isolated. Today, in a world of interconnection, things have changed. Tools often communicate with systems in the background. Everything and anything is connected to the Internet, can interact and exchange data. This process is coined with the term “Internet of Things” (IoT). As seen in the example of smart watches, the IoT is on the rise. Testing is required to cope with these new challenges. In the year 2016 it will be more important than ever for tests to be able to validate cross-device and cross-technology functionality.
3. Agile Testing and Continuous Integration
The practice of agile testing responds best to the challenges of 2016, where it’s all about high quality software, speed and interaction. The importance of recognizing and responding to changes in the software immediately, has been proven. However, it’s never been said that high-performance agile testing is easy, as software testers must be involved in every aspects of the software development process. New tests are generated continuously and added to existing automation in parallel to the software development itself. Agile development utilizes continuous integration tools such as Jenkins or TeamCity. These tools facilitate the integration of automated tests, resulting in frequent and faster software releases.
4. Cloud-Based Testing
One of the hottest trends in 2016 is cloud-based testing. When it comes to testing web applications, there is an ever increasing demand in combining cloud-based testing solutions with continuous integration. Due to the unlimited storage, quick availability and flexibility of a distributed testing environment, it is possible to reduce the execution time of software tests. This makes this combination particularly interesting. This type of testing enables companies to run automated web tests in different environments and on multiple machines without having to build their own testing infrastructure. Due to the scalability in cloud-based testing, companies can bring high-quality software faster and cost-efficiently to the market.
5. Integration of Test Automation into DevOps
In today’s fast moving world, clients push for faster software releases. To achieve these ambitious goals, new software testing practices are required. 2016 will see the rise of a concept called “DevOps”. This term encompasses ideas of development, testing and operations and combines practices such as continuous integration and continuous delivery, fostering the rapid development of high-quality software. In order for this concept to work, the software functionality has to be resistant to changes. It further requires a high level of test automation to ensure quality and efficiency throughout the lifecycle of a software application. Thus, automated testing has to be an integral part of DevOps. In order to establish a functioning DevOps environment, test automation will be on everyone’s lips in 2016.
6. SMAC Testing
With the emergence of apps using SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) on smartphones, wearables or connected devices like televisions, the value of testing SMAC apps in 2016 has been driven to a higher level. These apps have to be tested for the following parameters: functionality on different devices and platforms, load, performance, security and usability. Therefore, the need for robust and secure cross-technology test automation strategies is higher than ever before. The ability to secure sensitive “SMAC data”, such as user data in the cloud, is an essential factor when it comes to choosing a strategic testing approach.
7. Pair Testing
It’s a proven fact that the overall efficiency improves when testing and development teams work closely together. Quite understandably, this has become a growing trend, as it allows to quickly bridge communication gaps and further facilitates the immediate resolution of issues. Although everything but new, pair testing has recently experienced an upsurge. The advantages are seemingly endless; leaving the “developer-tester conflict” in the past, they work together as partners, speeding up the automation of testing scenarios – and with it the production of high-quality software.
Looking at these trends, we believe that a bright future of test automation is ahead of us. Prepare yourself for the emerging opportunities in the testing industry. Let’s work together so that our testing skills will never be outdated!
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