Top 11 Software Application Trends in 2021
In this fast-evolving digital world, the demand for quality products is increasing enormously than before. Customers are less likely to use applications with cluttered user experience, technical glitches, and poor performance. Instead, they are using and endorsing applications with fewer errors, interactive designs, responsiveness, and high security.
Do you know software application testing is one of the growing industries worldwide with a projected growth of USD 68 billion by 2025? With the growing demand for digital-first, companies are adopting automated testing technologies to remain competitive with improved ROI.
What makes your software product or application stand out from the crowd?
Apart from the development technology, software Quality Assurance testing is an integral part of the software development life cycle (SDLC) that makes or breaks your deal with customers.
Yes, you heard right. Software testing has equal importance as development to ensure the end product delivers optimal performance under various conditions armed with improved productivity. In 2021, companies are likely to revamp their software QA testing strategies with automation testing methods.
According to the most recently published study, MarketsAndMarkets.com, “automated testing in the world market size is projected to reach a CAGR (Compound annual growth rate) by 18.0% from $12.6 bn in 2019 up to $28.8 bn in 2024.”
Software application testing in 2021:
2020 was a turbulent year for enterprises across the globe. To equip these sudden changes, companies have adopted various technologies and built applications to navigate the tough times.
Here comes the real challenge with modern software testing. As companies are on the verge of delivering customer-centric applications, development teams need to maintain their pace of delivery while keeping quality as a top priority.
Software application testing is a process of analyzing an application’s performance across various devices, operating systems, architectures, and workloads.
Yet, due to a lack of understanding and prioritization, many companies fail to strategize their software application testing. Which, in turn, hurts the quality of the product and takes more time to resolve issues post-development.
Therefore, adopting software QA testing in the initial phases of software development will be cost-effective, reduce time-to-market, accelerate software release cycles, and deliver high-quality products.
The software QA testing industry is growing steadily and making a commendable contribution in delivering quality products. Because software application testing is so important, enterprises are embracing next-gen technologies to ensure well-optimized solutions.
Top 11 software testing trends to watch in 2021: Future of automation testing
Like application development, the software QA testing industry is transforming with the emergence of modern technologies. In recent years, automation testing gained momentum in generating test cases, resolving software errors, and accelerating product release cycles faster than manual testing. And, it’s no secret that early adopters will have a competitive advantage in delivering high-quality products and nurturing customers.
As companies embrace technologies like automation, cloud computing, and Big data analysis, we listed some top software testing trends to observe in 2021.
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technology:
Process automation has been the buzzing word across industries. To cope with ongoing trends, organizations are embracing automation technologies like AI and ML for process efficiency. AI technology continues to be a game-changer in the software application testing industry by reducing manual intervention and errors.
The global artificial intelligence market size was valued at USD 39.9 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42.2% from 2020 to 2027.
Together with machine learning and complex neural networks, AI-powered testing methods help enterprises get analytics and reports. Which, in turn, reduces unnecessary iterations and efforts. Let’s look at the benefits now.
- It helps in eradicating unnecessary and redundant test cases.
- Helps in finding exceptional test cases that require both manual and automated testing.
- Defect analytics allows you to identify application areas and defects associated with business risks.
- Predictive analytics helps you to understand the end-user behavior and discover app areas to stay focused.
- Ensuring optimal test coverage to identify essential keywords from a Requirements Traceability Matrix.
Machine Learning in software application testing can strengthen human intelligence and identify underexplored sections in your application. As applications need continuous testing and validations, we can expect analytics-centric ideas to solve potential problems.
2. Codeless automated testing:
Codeless test automation is one of the growing software testing trends to watch in 2021. These tools are built on AI technology and visual modeling to streamline and automate test cases with low manual intervention. Using this modern software testing technology, QA engineers can create test case scenarios with zero knowledge about coding. The codeless automated testing significantly saves time and accelerates product release cycles.
List of some codeless testing tools you should know in 2021:
- Katalon studio
- AcceIQ
- Testim
- Cloud QA
- Leapwork
- Selenium IDE
- Perfecto
- TestCraft
Top benefits of automated codeless software testing:
- Because these test cases are generated without code, they are easy to understand and review. Any non-technical stakeholder in your team can understand it better.
- Compared to other automated testing methods, it doesn’t need extra effort to learn and generate test cases. So you can devote that time to strategy building.
- Codeless automated testing saves your resource’s precious time. As your team doesn’t need to learn new skills to conduct test cases, they can work on other priorities.
- The codeless testing technology accelerates the overall testing automation process with efficiency.
3. IoT test automation:
The Internet of Things (IoT) is making steady growth across industries over the past few years. With the emergence of technology, industries including automobile, manufacturing, banking & finance, healthcare, and construction are using smart devices to collect and process data.
The IoT test automation technology enables your QA team to test and validate data across your organization or network. As the IoT network constitutes smart devices, you can generate test cases and resolve challenges in real-time.
According to the Gartner forecast, the installed base of active IoT connected devices will reach 21.5 billion units by 2025. This shows the growing capabilities of the Internet of Things.
4. Big data testing:
Data is an inevitable asset for any industry to build strategies and make well-informed decisions. Especially, industries such as BFSI, eCommerce, real estate, and media deal with high volumes of legacy data. Since enterprise data is growing year on year, the complexity of handling and generating test cases increases with manual testing methods.
Big Data testing is one of the growing software testing trends to observe in 2021 and beyond. With this technology, you can analyze user behaviors and build marketing strategies to reach and forge relations with customers.
Big Data testing, on the other hand, is pivotal in legacy application modernization and data migration. It ensures the quality, accuracy, and integrity of data that is essential for your organization’s growth.
5. QAOps testing technology:
With the enormous rise of automation and digital transformation, businesses are likely to release products without compromising quality. For that, organizations have to bring the QA, development, and operations departments together to work, deliver, and improve product quality.
QAOps (QA & DevOps) is one of the software testing trends to observe in 2021 and above, making its significance in delivering quality products. QA and DevOps together help organizations in accelerating application development, streamlining IT operations, and automating testing.
In the past, QA has been restricted to software application testing alone. But now, it is crucial throughout the development process.
In a nutshell, QAOps focus on application development, improving workflows between IT operations, fixing errors, and improving features to make your application ubiquitous. The QAOps testing technology works on two main principles:
- It uses continuous integration and a continuous delivery pipeline to ensure better quality and faster delivery.
- The QA engineers team works in parallel with the development and operations team to speed up delivery and reduce time-to-market.
6. Cybersecurity testing and risk compliance:
Data security is crucial for businesses, especially for those dealing with customer’s personal and sensitive information. The ongoing industrial revolution introduced many challenges for companies upgrading their legacy data into modern systems. It’s no surprise that cyberattacks are part of digital transformation and seek more attention from CTOs and CIOs.
Cybersecurity testing is one of the growing software QA testing trends in 2021 to ensure applications, networks, and systems are secured. Companies must embrace modern technologies such as AI and RPA to automate the security testing process and safeguard their data. Above all, enterprises need to stay up to date to ensure the infrastructure is safe and meets security standards.
Here are some stats for you to understand how businesses are increasing their budgets to combat the growing cybersecurity challenges.
- Spending on cybersecurity globally is going to hit USD 133.7 billion in the year 2022. (Gartner)
- 68% of company leaders feel their cybersecurity threats are rising
- The damage associated with cybercrime is estimated to hit USD 6 trillion yearly by 2021, as per the Cybersecurity Ventures.
Cybersecurity testing helps you:
- Identify technical gaps in your applications and infrastructure before intruders take over.
- Identify areas susceptible to cyber attacks. So you can upgrade your system before attackers do.
- Predict downtimes and provide immediate backup before it becomes fatal.
7. Performance testing and Performance engineering:
Users are likely to disengage with applications with low-quality and slow loading times. The growing need for quality and responsiveness has highlighted performance testing and performance engineering.
Performance testing identifies the bottlenecks of application performance post-development. Which, in turn, hurts the user experience and costs you a hefty amount. Performance testing works on several elements, including software, hardware, performance, configuration, security, usability, and business values.
Performance engineering is a modern software application testing trend gaining significant momentum in 2021. Whereas in performance engineering, QA teams design applications from the beginning of the software development lifecycle. It primarily focuses on identifying and solving errors during the development phase — — further saves cost, time and reduces product delivery cycles.
Performance testing and performance engineering are crucial for meeting evolving needs, faster development time, and frequent release of applications.
8. Hyper Automation:
It is one of the fastest-growing software application testing trends to observe in 2021. As companies are becoming digital-first, they are revamping their application development and testing with modern strategies.
Hyper Automation software application testing utilizes the power of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), AI, and ML to improve employee performance and product quality. Instead of replacing humans, through Hyper automation, employees will be freed from repetitive and time-consuming tasks.
According to Gartner, by 2024, Based on hyper-automation technology and modern operating procedures, companies can lower operating costs by 30%.
9. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) testing technology:
Together with AI and ML, RPA is one of the growing technologies across industries. Primarily, RPA uses a specialized computer program called a bot to perform some repetitive and time-consuming tasks.
RPA automates operations and creates test cases by reducing manual intervention. RPA testing technology, on the other hand, cuts costs, improves quality, and improves operational controls.
As per Research and Markets survey 2020 report, the Robotic Process Automation global market is estimated at USD 595.8 Million in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of USD 3.4 Billion by 2027, growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 28.2% between 2020–2027.
10. Shift left testing:
Shift left testing is one of the growing software application testing trends in 2021. In the traditional software development lifecycle, development strategies and requirements are placed on the left side and delivery and testing on the right side of the workflow.
With the traditional approach, error identification and fixing will take more time and could turn into a costly affair. With the shift-left testing strategy, the QA team collaborates with the development team from the beginning to resolve bugs immediately. This, in turn, improves product quality and speeds up project delivery time.
11. Blockchain testing technology:
Blockchain is one of the fastest-growing technologies in recent years. It gained significance with the emergence of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Industries such as BFSI, healthcare, retail, automotive, media, and entertainment use this technology for secured transactions.
Though it is modern technology, it comes with a few technical glitches and data security. Therefore, companies need to adopt an effective blockchain testing strategy to ensure application security, improved productivity, and business growth.
The global blockchain market size is expected to grow from USD 3.0 billion in 2020 to USD 39.7 billion by 2025, at an impressive Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 67.3% during 2020–2025.
Conclusion:
Traditional software testing methods have lost their charm with the advent of modern automated testing technologies. Relying on old methods not only delays your project development but also adversely affects your product quality.
With the adoption of modern software QA testing technologies, you can outperform your competitors with faster product development and release cycles. However, having a team of QA engineers with proven expertise is pivotal to meet ever-changing requirements.
If you don’t have an internal team, you can collaborate with Quality Assurance and Testing services providers to fill the skills gap and kick start your project immediately. Amzur is one of the leading software testing services providers in Tampa, Florida, USA, with a track record of servicing SMEs across verticals for the past 15 years.
Our software testing services are powered by modern tools and software testing frameworks with speed-to-market ambition in mind. If you are looking for an automation testing services provider and at the juncture of uncertainty, feel free to reach us to know which software testing methodologies fit your organization.
Automate your software testing efforts today.
