Software testing in today’s society is one heck of a challenge. Finding the perfect balance within the testing world is nothing but a challenge – often so essential that the process must be completed by a programmer or, not enough so that testing can be done by any unskilled person.
With the ongoing, exceptional pressure to create, develop and launch new and innovative mobile applications – testers are being put to the test, read more here. Challenging their skill sets with techniques ranging from coding, reading spreadsheets to dealing directly with customers, the testers’ role is at risk of becoming extinct.
As stated by Lisa Crispin, an Agile testing coach, expert, and author: ‘The roles are blurring. In the Agile world now the focus is on competency, not roles’. This statement effectively raises a number of serious questions – but most importantly, should program development and testing roles to combine together and become one?
The Future of Testing
In order to properly understand what the future of testing holds, it is important to look at a number of specific components and reiterate certain questions.
Primarily, it is important to understand where software development ends and testing begins. In fact, it is not necessarily the QA engineer’s role that should be placed under the microscope but instead – the entire software development team. It is not a surprise however, that many testers are extremely nervous when it comes to employment due to the fact that their skillsets do not necessarily include coding and scripting. And this anxiety stems with reason – many software companies have eliminated testing as a whole.
Is the answer here to turn all testers into programmers? This same question was asked to several expert developers and overall, their response was ‘absolutely not’. Instead, it is far time to look at the structure of the working development team and creating technical awareness for all. Testers are needed in their primary role – testing software – and should not be required to develop ample skillsets or competences such as coding, as an effective team should already be compromised of programmers who are trained for such tasks.
An Increase in Mobile apps, an Increase in Mobile Testing
Software development is on a constant rise, in fact creating a rapidly evolving need for testers. Growing possibilities such as service-oriented architecture, the new focus on DevOps, increased visualization and the desires generated towards the cloud reason why testers are and should remain of great need.
Furthermore, there are numerous significant trends that are uprising all throughout the software testing world that will, in turn, effectively amend the terrain on which testers find themselves today.
Mobile App Testing
The incredible surge in mobile application development is obviously nothing new. However, with this generalized increase also rises a greater need for mobile testing activities including, but not limited to functionality, performance and security of both mobile apps and devices. In fact, many applications benefit from the power of the cloud in order to communicate. For this reason, data and information security is of uttermost importance.
Although mobile devices and application have become an obvious trend as more consumers spend increasing amounts of time on various devices, according to the World Quality Report – 55% of application testing organizations lack adequate testing procedures. With this information in mind, it is possible to state that while increasing mobile usage remains the future of our society, business have yet to develop effective (and necessary) testing procedures.
Cloud Testing
Testing environments can be, at times, both difficult and expensive to manage. However today, cloud computing has an increasing role where about 26% of software applications are in fact hosted on the cloud. For this main reason, both IT professional and experts are capable of reasoning the adoption of cloud-based testing.
Although there are still existing concerns related to security or performance in cloud based testing environments, such testing is also extremely flexible and adjustable. Experts in the domain state.
Context Testing
When it comes to testing mobile applications, a generalized model – or in other words, a ‘one-size fits all’ – is not of the most reliable. Context testing is the derivative of the growing need for adoption, for possible alterations and accommodations. In other words, there is a strongly growing need to be adaptable to the changes in contextualized events.
Context testing is a trend that is expected to explode within a few years. In fact, according to several leaders in the software industry – the future, most successful developers will be those that can bring the widest set of adjustable competences to the table.
Security Testing
Of course, security is already a very known and needed aspect within today’s mobile world. However, it is important to keep in mind the growing possibilities that are emerging from information systems and increased connectivity. The Internet Of Things, Cloud computing, DevOps and Cloud are increasingly taking center stage, bringing forth the need for security testing like never before.
Tester Certification
A different, yet growing and very important trend is that of certification. As earlier mentioned, at times testing appears to be such an easy and underrated task that any, untrained individual could complete the process. However, with growing importance comes an increase in responsibility and certification will ultimately lead to the best results. Although certification exists through the ISTQB program since way back in the ‘80’s, it is only today that the trend is pushing forward. Maybe trained testers don’t have to worry so much after all!
Overall, the role of testing is much too great and much too important to simply eradicate it from the software developing world. Instead, due to the emergence of mobile testing trends as well as the growing need for certified and skillful testers, it is of utmost important that the functioning of software teams be scrutinized and modified.
