A Sneak Peek into The Future of Software Testing Automation
Tags: testing, automation, futureoftesting, testinginsights
Published: 2019-08-06 15:53:19

Change is real and always happening; the only thing that is constant in the world. In the world of technology, change has brought a significant contribution to innovation. The everyday technology-driven tools we have today may be upgraded tomorrow. Futuristic ideas we frequently see in the sci-fi movies are now being conceptualized and developed and soon to be available in the market.

This is a similar case in the world of software testing automation. First-generation of testing automation was introduced and not long after that, second-generation tools like Selenium came into play and then there is the scriptless software test automation approach that empower testers to develop complex test cases and test scripts without any in-depth knowledge of programming or coding. This also enables the business to automate a large volume of workload and reduce the go-to-market time of the product.

This is just one of the many great advantages of scriptless test automation tools and more can be read in the <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/scriptless-test-automation-agile-devops/"> article</a>. All of this is not possible without change that triggers the magic of technology innovation. No one knows exactly what the future holds for software test automation. For that, we cannot help but anticipate what the future brings, especially in software test automation. This is why we have prepared a list of insights of possible innovation that may happen shortly, and insights that are based on the existing technology, framework, principles, and practices.


####The Race for AI Testing

One of today's important breakthroughs in technology is the availability of low-level artificial intelligence the Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Microsoft’s Cortana. These low-level AIs are focused on one or more low-level tasks for instance, recognizing a voice command to play music or search something over the internet through your smartphone.

Many software companies are racing to build a full-fledged AI capable of interacting with a real human being that can mimic human actions, decisions, and thinking. It is worth noting that Google, on the other hand, is leveraging its access to billions and trillions of data across the internet. Data that they can use for their statistical model approach to improve their Google translation services on an AI scale.

The influence of AI has already made its way to the QA world. This has become a trend already as some of the software testing companies are now incorporating AI with their NLP based test automation solution.

<a href="https://testsigma.com/">Testsigma</a> is among the most popular and early stage adopters of <a href="https://testsigma.com/ai-driven-test-automation">AI in test automation</a> in its true sense. Testsigma’s AI-driven test maintenance help create stable and reliable tests faster than ever and leverage AI to speed-up the maintenance of your automated tests. It also suggest relevant tests cases that are affected with calls to action for failures.

The future of software testing is bright, with the continuous effort and with major players in the software industry to unlock the full capabilities of AI. Who knows what tomorrow brings? We are yet to find out. One thing we can be sure of is that AI will not replace testers but they will co-exist to enhance the software quality.


####Shortened Life cycles

The continuous and rising demand for efficiency in governance has resulted in the adoption of several frameworks, principles, approaches, practices, and culture. This has proven to be the case over the past few decades.

Different methodologies like Scrum, Waterfall, Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), and many more are widely used in project management. Now the demand to shorten the go-to-market time of the product arises along with the results that are based on an iterative process which is why Agile is widely being adopted. DevOps was introduced along the way, reinforcing existing methodologies. DevOps is practically a culture and practice that helps shorten life cycles whether Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) or Release Cycle.

Another approach was also introduced, the Shift-Left Testing approach which is being adopted. It is the maxim of “Test early and test often”.

Based on what is happening, fast-pacde technology innovation, plus the market competition are also on the rise – we are to expect that a different version, especially a shortened version of existing governance, methodology, approach, practices, and principles will surely be introduced to address the needs of the business. I guess we will soon find out!


####The Age of Mobile Testing

The exponential growth in mobile usage and the internet has never been this big before. This is all due to digitalization that is happening all over the globe. Day to day activities of every individual is in a way influenced digitally. This is causing every business to have its product accessible to the mobile channel. This is a major shift QA as well. Testers needed to make sure the product such as web apps, webpages, and mobile native apps are mobile responsive.

Working with the mobile application and other mobile technology involves integration mostly done through Application Programming Interface (API). APIs provide interoperability between mobile platforms. Think of it this way, you can do fund transfer from your Paypal account to your local bank account – that is one of the many ways how API works.

In API integration, the test team role is to make sure that every feature is working as designed and thoroughly check the system for issues and defects that may interrupt the connection between the mobile platform. Interruption can be anything from an internet connection or could be anything related to system availability.

Major players in the industry of software test automation already noticed the trend and as their response, they have developed their Testing Automation Software to address the need for mobile app testing in addition to Web and Web services’ testing.


####Testing Blockchain Application on The Rise
With the rise of blockchain, businesses from different industries are shifting to blockchain to leverage the benefit of such technology. This also means that the QA test team also needs to step up as testing blockchain application is not much of a difference in testing non-blockchain platforms. Testing such blockchain-driven technology involves additional workload, KPIs and metrics for the test team.

These additional workloads, KPIs, and metrics can be from testing the chain size of the blockchain. The longer the chain is, the more data the blockchain has – which results in high storage consumption in the datastore. In a blockchain environment, the growth of data is fast due to the nature of it having no data size limitation. There are always new blocks constantly being created.

Data integrity and data propagation must be taken into account by the QA test team. If we are working with blockchain, data save on one node should be consistent with all other nodes connected in a chain. Having a seamless data propagation means the distribution of data is forwarded properly to all nodes within the blockchain.

Another buzzword for the test team when it comes to blockchain are hashes and cryptography. These are features of blockchain to employing security within the chain. Hashes are created every time a new token is generated. A token could be any form of a transaction within the chain. The test team's role is to ensure that there are no flaws.

The continuous adoption of blockchain technology by business worldwide pave the way for more software testing of blockchain-operated systems and applications. 


####Leveled QA and Testing Roles

With all of those changes in technology, business adapting to change itself, and even environment levelling itself up, it is a must especially for the test team to learn how to cope up with what is happening. New skill sets may soon be required for testing. It is recommended not only for QA tester but also for someone who is inclined to technology-related jobs to stay up to date with the latest trends. Researching, cross-skilling, and even self-study to upskill yourself are always useful in times like these as we are expecting heightened testing standards and some grey area test scenarios laid out for us in the future. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared as early as now.

A sneak peek into the future of software testing automation which covers areas like AI reduced delivery lifecycles, blockchain, and mobile technology shift movement – which are the are most of the biggest trends in the world of technology. These trends factors that were seen to have a proven track record over time, of forging advancements in Software Test Automation.

Who knows what the bright future holds for us. What we can do for now is to either sit tight and yet to find out or start making a difference in shaping what's lies ahead of us.