QA Trends: Testing Everything!
There are so many new developments in the software industry that it’s incredibly difficult to predict anything. It’s incredibly difficult to test everything too, even if we want to. However, as experts in QA we should be aware that we can test everything.
What Is ‘Testing Everything’?
One answer would be anything that is connected; IOT, TVs, mobile devices, different screen sizes, browsers, wearables, voice controlled devices. But this is a large range of digital mediums — we need to start somewhere.
If half the world has a mobile phone it means potentially that one of those people is using their phone to to access your website
If you’ve been working in Software QA for a few years you’ll probably have worked on a responsive website, and if you haven’t worked on one, you will. And if you’re not testing the responsiveness of a page; you should be. In 2017 more than half of the world’s population has a smartphone. That’s a very, very large number. And if half the world has a mobile phone, it means potentially that one of those people is using their phone to use an app or website that you have worked on as a QA. Accessing a site through a mobile device is incredibly easy and convenient, and mobile phone users expect a site that is easy to use and doesn’t look hideous. Moreover, it’s not too difficult these days for a site to be responsive and “respond” to different devices it is being displayed on. And it is definitely not difficult for responsiveness to be tested.
The company you’re working as a QA for may also have a mobile app and this requires a similar QA mindset but just added complexity of testing on a mobile device.
There are different types of automation tests that can be run and created for mobile devices. There are different things to learn in testing them. As the possible scope of testing increases, testers need more confident with automation techniques and developing code. They need to have more of an understanding of how a technology works in order to fully test it or think about how to test it properly.
No one wants to be DDOSed by a kitchen appliance
With the tremendous increase in the devices that are now connected to the internet, security testing will become more embedded into a standard QA’s role — at the very least, the knowledge of security testing will. Network-enabled devices are being connected to the internet so often that by 2020 there could be 3 times more connected devices than people. A whole home’s appliances are being network & enabled and being exposed to the world. I’m sure that no one wants to be DDOSed by a kitchen appliance or a Home Security System. Sounds a bit crazy, but it’s possible. It’s already happened. So Security Testing at an early stage of a product’s life cycle will become more necessary. A good level of application security should already be implemented with things like safe development practices and closer adherence to OWASP standards, but a QA must have an understanding of these security standards.
The increasing number of breaches that have happened recently has meant that a lot of legal controls have been created. These enforce rules around breaches and breach notification. This is making us all vulnerable. So you should be thinking about building security.
And then there was a change…
Then there’s the technology that seems incredibly difficult for many of us to fathom being real, such as AI or driver less cars or blockchain or cryptocurrency or viable space travel. But they all show the potential to be life changing and impact humanity in such a way that maybe the start of a new era is only years away. You’d think that it would all need some sort of Quality Assurance involved too, as it concerns the things humans value as important; life, money, freedom.
More creativity that QAs have == better testing
All of this increase in opportunities for Testing mean that Automation frameworks should become easier to use, more flexible, have more functions .It’s important to remember that one of the most important roles of QA is increasing value for the end user of a product. It’s still important that testing meets its core objective of preventing defects but also be directly related to creating customer value. Everything should be tested, but not just for the sake of testing it. There needs to be value from the testing. I’m a big fan of free tools and open source software that allow a larger amount of creativity in being a QA. And the more creativity that QAs have the more bugs they can find and the more things they can test.
