Code to the Future

Global events have created an environment where companies are adopting coding strategies combining both testing processes and quality assurance measurements.

Lately, we have seen countless risk-takers employing out-of-the-box thinking and experimenting with new technologies. Just to stay in business.

How can you make sure that your avant-garde idea pans out? Below are the influential trends empowering QA teams to perform even better in 2021.

Limitless-ish

Although Artificial Intelligence hasn’t yet embraced its full potential (no cybernetic androids for now), it is soon to become a tester’s BFF.

AI-based testing platforms are helping companies perform testing in smarter and more efficient ways.

Here’s how machine intelligence is making a dent in the testing market:

• Machine-written test cases;
• Automating API test generation;
• Automated UI testing;
• Creating automated tests more reliable, and others.

But that’s not even half of the superpowers it possesses.

Eventually, the unbeatable combo of NLP, ML, and reasoning will help developers minimize their direct participation in the process and automate testing completely.

It Fits

Modern approaches are also merging principles of DevOps with QA into QAOps.

This novel approach inherits the best from CI/CD projects and combines it with the best from the QA process.

Thus, instead of having a minor role, QAOps introduces quality assurance into the whole software development lifecycle.

It keeps the testing team constantly engaged and helps them fix bugs sooner, boosting the value delivered to users.

Interconnected Future

This year, the Internet of Things will continue its exponential growth accelerated by 4G and 5G network standards.

This means that the projected surge in the number of IoT devices will increase the need and scope of IoT testing as well. Hence, QA engineers should be ready to face the new challenges and test the software built for entirely new types of hardware.

Among the micro-trends of IoT testing are also IoT Network Security Challenges, Big Data Testing, and Micro Services Test Automation.

Testing in Chains

The blockchain testing service market is expected to grow from $258 million in 2020 to over $2,400 million by 2026.

This staggering growth suggests that record-keeping databases are some of the most promising market technologies in 2021.

From healthcare and energy to supply chains and media, blockchain has been making its mark on almost every industry. Therefore, we’ll see the tech market crying out for QA specialists with blockchain domain skills to provide professional testing services.

Keep Your Info to Yourself

The industrial revolution introduced higher cybersecurity threats, thus making security testing a foremost necessity.

CTOs and CIOs came to realize the repercussions connected with downtimes, holes, cyberattacks, and data leaks.

The latter has, unfortunately, become common amidst the Covid-challenged digital space.

Therefore, security testing is not going to lose its stronghold and continues to be a priority for businesses in order to identify the weak parts of their systems.

2020 challenged all of us. Do not make your 2021 even more challenging by jeopardizing your digital assets.

Credit for the above piece goes to Tatsiana Isakova, Hang Ngo, and Ellen Stevens.