For a long time in the past, software testing was just about finding bugs (defects) in products. The goal: to improve product quality. But nowadays, the scope of software testing is much wider.

In software testing technology, automated testing has always been in a leading position. Following the latest trends in automated testing, the software testing industry is growing faster than it has in the past decade.

This article will discuss automation testing trends that software test engineers must be aware of in 2021.

Left and right

With the rise of left-shift testing, testers start writing test cases as soon as requirements are clear, and this process is likely to run in parallel with development. The left-shift methodology focuses on testing, monitoring, and updating applications in production, not just the responsibility of individual teams.

Using the right shift method does not mean that you should pay less attention to the left shift. The two approaches go hand in hand. Moving left helps the team create a better development process, which reduces the number of bugs found after development is complete. Moving right means creating a plan that allows the team to continue testing after the product has a user base. For better user experience testing as well as real-time load and performance testing.

The right-shift approach is one of the latest automation testing trends that will become even more popular in 2021.

Cloud-based cross-browser testing

Gone are the days of developing only Web sites, where presentation requires teams to make Web pages compatible with specific mobile devices with the same or more capabilities as PC desktops. Today, most companies prefer websites developed in a mobile-first way. There are hundreds of mobile devices on the market, each with its own resolution and browser and special attributes. Building such a massive testing infrastructure is expensive. This is why most companies are moving to cloud-based cross-browser testing frameworks.

The need to use such frameworks will continue to increase through 2021. This automated testing trend is already close.

Ai-driven testing

Automated testing is designed to reduce manual effort in repetitive processes such as regression testing. Even then, writing test cases and scripts requires human involvement. Since today’s customers expect faster delivery, how can we reduce manual work even further? The solution: artificial intelligence. How will AI affect the testing industry

The biggest advantage that ai-driven tools offer is that they are easy to maintain. It has the ability to adapt better. These tools constantly monitor the code and look for changes or patterns. Once they discover any changes in the application, the tool modifies the test script accordingly.

Tools such as TestCraft and Testim use machine learning and AI to authorize, execute and maintain automated tests. In terms of acceptance, they will be a very popular automation test trend in 2021. So once AI-driven test automation becomes widespread, the maintenance that plagues test engineers will no longer be a headache, because AI will do the job.

Selenium and code free automation

Selenium is already the most popular tool for automated testing of Web applications. It will continue to do so for the following reasons:

  • Free to use and open source
  • Supports multiple browsers and operating systems
  • Support for multiple languages, for exampleC #,Python,Java,Perl,PHPandRuby
  • Selenium4 IDEFeatures to help debug, document, or edit test cases
  • Selenium4 IDE, it’s finally here
  • Selenium4 IDE features: No code trend and SIDE Runner
  • Selenium4 IDE features: Elastic testing, looping, and logical judgment

But Selenium will change in 2021 with the increasing popularity of AI and machine learning. Testcraft and many other tools are already in this area. Supported by Selenium and AI, these automation tools provide code-free test automation support. With the latest trend in automated testing, testers can now automatically generate self-healing Selenium code.

  • Selenium Automation: Code and no-code testing
  • Selenium4 IDE features: No code trend and SIDE Runner
  • Code-based and code-free automation

Internet of Things performance testing

The use of iot devices is growing rapidly. As more and more users buy smart devices. Because the job of IoT devices is to simplify users’ daily tasks, performance testing in IoT testing must be particularly important if IoT applications are to be developed.

As the number of iot devices and applications increases, companies and developers will focus on testing the performance of their products. So, following the latest trends in automated testing, by 2021 we’ll see a surge in the use of tools like IoTIFY, MATLAB, and Simulink, as well as other simulators. These tools make life easier for developers and also make testing more efficient.

Include QAOps in the test Management tool

Today, almost all companies follow the CI/CD approach. DevOps Bridges the communication gap between development teams and operations teams. However, quality assurance is an important part of CI/CD. The quality inspection team must not work as an island. QAOps has become a trend because it Bridges the gap between QA and other teams. Let’s learn this new word: QA-OPS.

In the DevOps era, QAOps has brought attention to the challenges QA teams have faced over the past few years. 2021 will see the evolution of test management tools. These tools need to be more flexible and ready to support QAOps.

Use automated tools in blockchain applications

When we talk about blockchain technology, the first thing that comes to mind is bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. But now, the scope of blockchain technology has expanded a lot. In addition, it is used in food, transportation, supply chain management and other industries. That’s because blockchain provides the highest level of security for any financial transaction.

In 2021, the demand for QA experts with domain specific knowledge of blockchain application testing will increase and will be one of the top automation testing trends to look for. In addition to their expertise, test professionals should have some knowledge of automation tools. There are popular tools such as Ethereum Tester or Exomum Testkit. With these tools, transaction and API execution can be tested in a blockchain system.

Blockchain development mainly follows agile development methods. However, on the testing side, left-shifting testing methods have become increasingly popular.

Automated testing of cloud services

Automated testing of cloud services has the advantages of low cost, scalability, and ease of maintenance. But what are the advantages of cloud-based tools? With cloud-based tools, testers can do mobile and Web testing in different environments and machines without having to set up infrastructure. There will be huge demand for cloud computing in 2021.

One of the latest trends in automated testing will be testing such frameworks for cloud-based products in 2021.

NoOps

Automation fever has taken over the industry. Good people start thinking about the development model of the future: NoOps.

The goal of NoOps is to automate the entire work of the operations team. While the concept is great, it’s still in its infancy, and it’s going to take time to really take hold.

The bottom line

Although the purpose of automation is to eliminate some of the repetitive manual work. Although automated testing has made great strides in the past few years, the importance of manual testers is undeniable.


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