2013 Technology Trends—What Do They Mean for Software Testers?
As we put 2012 behind us and head into 2013, a frequent topic in online posts, forums, and discussions is technology trends for 2013. This is a common discussion at the start of every calendar year with analysts, researchers, and industry practitioners sharing their thoughts and predictions.
If I were to summarize the posts that have been coming out about 2013, the focus is on mobile devices and technologies, including tablets that have been talked about at length, connected devices and embedded technologies in areas such as new kinds of televisions and fitness devices, working through big user data to arrive at intelligent decisions, and cloud-based technologies and solutions.
The one underlying theme prominent in all of this is the consumerization of technology. There continues to be massive globalization in software development and launch, which greatly expands product reach and potential.
After interpreting what this means for the software testing community, I see the following salient points emerging.
Testers should continue to be user advocates with a strong focus on their quality efforts and should rope users into the quality game in possible areas, such as crowdsourced testing.
Responsive design is becoming a pressing topic, as product support across configurations scales and aligns with the device on which it is being used. Compatibility and application support-based testing will continue to be in the spotlight, so an optimized and automated compatibility test plan leveraging the cloud will definitely be important.
Touch-optimized testing efforts will gain in popularity in the coming year, including testing for embedded computing and pervasive technologies, necessitating a test strategy that is customizable on short notice and has access to devices and alternate simulators and emulators to achieve the required test coverage.
Understanding and interpreting user data flowing in from multiple directions and using it to create a robust big data testing strategy will be critical across domains.
There will be a continued push toward agility and faster time to market at lower cost of operations and quality. A driver’s seat to build team collaborations and deliver high quality releases periodically will be important to succeed as a group.
Cloud-powered solutions and services are only going to increase. Personal cloud is becoming a popular phenomenon, increasing the need for a strong SaaS testing strategy. In addition, given the expansive product reach and several external dependencies at play (including third party content feeds), performance and security testing will be two areas of ongoing specialization in addition to the core functional testing efforts.
2013 seems to be an exciting year for the software industry, and the testing discipline holds an important share in realizing the potential it promises. Picking areas of relevance to your industry and investing in software testing tools and practices to empower the testing teams is undeniably going to give you a leading edge over the competition in building products and solutions of exceptional quality.
