Software Testing evolution in 2013

2012 was the year all testers “had to learn to write a little bit of code,” said Johanna Rothman, of Rothman Consulting Group, in Mass. That resulted in two things: The Agile practice of test-driven development, in which tests are developed before code is written, and the increasing automation of software testing.

Mobile revolution is going on and the new era of mobile banking has made the testers as well as developers spent a good quantity of their time in security testing in 2012. Also the e-commerce market is growing and becoming more competitive every day. This means, the customer experience is going to play an even bigger role in 2013. Online shops are expected to be stylish and beautifully designed – but customers are getting more demanding in terms of performance and usability on multiple devices.

We also saw many of the testers took on the role of business partners rather than bug fixers. We now wonder what would be the software testing trends in 2013. Andrea in a blog post on xceptance highlighted the various software testing trends in 2013. Let’s take a look at some of them.

1.  Mobile Usability

As we all know, mobile shopping is growing at a very fast pace; however, many of the companies are not ready for this trend. Mobile shopping sites displays the same things that we can find in a standard shop but the display is relatively smaller. Mobile phones have a smaller screen size and this is the biggest problem to usability.

2.   Client Side Performance

As the JavaScript becomes successful the client side performance is going to suffer. The integration of third party apps will also be a hindrance to the success of client side performance. In 2013, there will be more focus on server performance server as well as browser performance testing.

3.   Automated Cross – Browser Testing

Usually all the browsers are expected to behave in the same way across all platforms, however, this is always not true in the real world . So not only test automation is important, but being able to perform them on different platforms running different browsers. More emphasis will be given on the compatibility of the browser across all platforms.

4.   Mobile Performance

It is a known fact that mobile surfing is usually much slower than browsing the web with a regular computer. In 2013, much focus will be placed on the performance of mobile sites. Standard performance tests will be extended to mobile sites covering bandwidth as well as client site issues.

5.  More Realistic Load Tests

Do real users do the same stuff again and again on a web site? Do customers really search for one specific product, add it to the cart, and order it repeatedly?

We are convinced that load tests have to simulate the real world as best as possible. Let the users browse freely and order random products with random quantities. User behaviour variance during load tests is the key to detailed insights such as cache patterns, memory behavior, and load distribution. Additionally it makes tests more robust, because the data dependencies becoming smaller.

5.   Exploratory Testing

Now-a-days agile software development practices are getting popular. It is high time for software testing companies to adopt a more exploratory approach. The biggest priority for many of the software testing companies is to deliver quick results. The design and execution of the tests are performed at the same time.

Exploratory testing requires highly skilled testers who are able to produce results quickly and consistently. Testers who work structured and cover all bases but do not spent days or weeks organizing and maintaining test cases. Testers who can apply their knowledge to any application in no time. Testers who are pair with the developers. Let’s get well prepared for that.

Where Next?

I have no idea where we’ll be at the end of 2013, I just know it won’t be where we’re at right now. I look forward to seeing what 2013 really looks like!

What are your thoughts on testing’s evolution over the next year? Three years? Five years? Let us know in the comments!