Mobile apps are growing in numbers as well as in the scope of what they can achieve. World-wide, mobile app downloads grew by 11% in 2022 over 2021, signaling a year-on-year increase in the mobile app market size. Today mobile apps even function as remote controllers for smart homes, wearable devices, and even industrial equipment. There’s a growing trend towards IoT-driven Mobile Apps, helping users to effortlessly connect their various devices.
What does all this mean for the testing world? Well, for mobile app testing, some things never change – Speed and accuracy present an even more dichotomous dilemma for QA professionals. With increased app downloads, there is increased competition among the millions of apps vying for user attention. Time-to-market is a very decisive factor in the face of this immense competition, as success favors the first movers. With mobile apps growing in complexity, testing needs to be well equipped to weed out all errors, to ensure superior user experience. Mastery of the speed-accuracy game mandates keeping abreast of testing trends, which is where this blog places the spotlight.
Mobile Testing Trends in 2023
- AI and ML Continue Making Inroads
- Test Automation on the Rise
- Security Testing Gaining Critical Importance
- Script-less/Low Code Test Automation Favored
- API and Service Testing Trending
- Accessibility Testing Imperative
- CI/CD Continues to Gain Ground
- DevOps and Agile Testing Evolving
- Real Device Cloud Testing Expands Horizons
- Observability for Enhanced Performance
- AI and ML Continue Making Inroads
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are expected to hold sway in mobile app testing far into the future. The reasons are many: They greatly contribute speed and accuracy to the testing process and promote the vital goal of rapid releases; they enhance testing strategies; improve reporting and analytics; help test prioritization; optimize test coverage; weed out redundant tests; and detect issues that would be otherwise very difficult to uncover. The intelligence of AI, ML, and big data greatly refine forecasting and predictive analytics, and unearth errors that go undetected in manual testing. According to Grand View Research, the global AI-enabled testing market size was valued at USD 414.7 million in 2022 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.4% from 2023 to 2030.
- Test Automation on the Rise
Test automation is undoubtedly a necessity in today’s fast paced digital landscape. Many companies have fully automated their QA processes and many others are in the process of test automation. According to Global Market Insights: The market size of automation testing valued at USD 20 billion in 2022, is projected to depict over 15?GR from 2023 to 2032, with increased usage of software testing across various domains. In order to compete within this growing automation trend, it’s imperative to hop on to the QA automation bandwagon in case you’re not already on it. However, to get the full benefits of test automation other testing methodologies and processes like Agile, Devops, CI/CD, etc. need to be in place. Also, remember to reserve for manual testing, the tests that are better done manually like Exploratory Tests, complex test scenarios where automation is not feasible, and tests that need infrequent validation.
- Security Testing Gaining Critical Importance
Purplesec, a cyber- security company run by U.S. veterans, reveals that cybercrime increased globally by 600 % during the COVID-19 pandemic, and could cost the world $10.5 trillion by 2025. Now that’s a staggering figure! Clearly app security is of utmost importance as leakage of sensitive data can cost the company dearly in legal settlements and also in rectifications. With the transition to remote workforces, and the Internet of things (IoT) growing rapidly, cyber-risks have increased immensely, as many more unsuspecting devices become easy targets. It’s no wonder then, that Security Testing has become extremely important in 2023. Penetration Testing, Cyber-security Testing, and the whole gamut of tests that support Security Testing must be employed to safeguard sensitive data and information; and keep hackers at bay.
- Script-less/Low Code Test Automation Favored
Script-less/low code automation frameworks are a great way to increase testing speed and accuracy. The success stories of companies that benefitted from these frameworks have been instrumental in this trend continuing into 2023, as others follow suit. Its popularity has risen because costly coding expertise can be productively diverted for specialized customization, rather than routine, mundane tests that can be executed with greater testing confidence and speed on script-less/low code test automation frameworks. Cloud-based testing has furthered this cause, as the benefits can be enjoyed without additional hardware costs. All in all Script-less/Low Code Test Automation is a winner as it helps streamline and scale business operations while expanding testing coverage.
- API and Service Testing Trending
API and Service Testing is another trending strategy, as it has the potential to reduce coding time for mobile apps and promote swift deployment. This is because existing comprehensive non-mobile environments are already equipped with functionalities that can be used to develop mobile apps using APIs. API testing will be required to enhance security and API efficiency via test automation. What will need the close attention of testers is the effective communication between apps and the API. In this scenario, testers must also remember to test the app’s UI, features, and functions which APIs don’t cater to.
- Accessibility Testing Imperative
A WHO report estimates that currently 1.3 billion people experience significant disability – which represents 16% of the world’s population, or 1 in 6 of us. Accessibility Testing aims at making apps accessible to all – including the 16% differently-abled who have diminished levels of cognitive, visual, hearing, and mobility-related abilities. No mobile app company can afford to cut off such a significant percentage from their customer base. Besides, with Governments enacting various laws to protect the rights of the differently-abled to help them integrate into society, it becomes legally incumbent for mobile app companies to cater to the differently-abled and avoid legal hassles. All this has given fillip to the growing importance of Accessibility Testing.
- CI/CD Continues to Gain Ground
Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) together work well to reduce testing time and augment accuracy, which is why its horizons have been widening in the testing world. The principle behind CI/CD is that codes are consistently added to a shared repository and are validated using automated tools and builds for faster app deployment. Thus CI/CD makes testing a continuous process and cuts down the slack time between development and testing. Therefore it continues to hold a pivotal place, given the ever shrinking ‘time-to-market’ in large-scale app development.
- DevOps and Agile Testing Evolving
The ‘go-to-market’ race rush is only getting hotter for mobile apps. Given this fact, 2023 is seeing an evolution in DevOps and Agile Testing which play a critical role in shortening the SDLC. Integrating Devops and Agile methodologies into the SDLC, empowers developers and QA professionals to work together and communicate faster, to meet the market mandates of increased speed, efficiency, risk mitigation, and continuous feedback loops without compromising on quality.
- Real Device Cloud Testing Expands Horizons
Cloud hosted testing platforms facilitate parallel testing of numerous devices and browsers, which, in the physical realm, can prove very expensive and tedious. With the speed of digital innovation and the high level of device fragmentation, testing on all the popular devices for every update is necessary, but becomes very expensive. Remote servers hosted on the Cloud that can store, manage, and process data, are therefore becoming the preferred choice of cost conscious testing teams that believe in value for money. The flexibility and scalability of cloud-based testing solutions endears them to developers and testers alike.
- Observability for Enhanced Performance
Applied Observability uses AI to productively analyze internally generated data, to promote faster and more accurate decision-making, thus optimizing business operations real time. A mobile observability platform circumvents response slack and can substantially improve various areas such as start-up time, user drop-off, networking, memory management, rendering time, web view issues, and user flows. All this greatly contributes to real-time monitoring, proactive issue detection, and actionable insights, resulting in better performance, improved user experience, and consistent improvement. Observability is therefore becoming an important trend, as it helps organizations enhance performance and stay ahead of competition.
The ideal way to give your app the wings it needs to make its mark in this speed and accuracy driven world, is to be in sync with the latest testing trends. It will not only help your app stand a good chance in the ‘time-to-market’ race, but also ensure it scores well on the ‘superior user experience’ scale. If you are wondering how to ensure this, here’s a winning solution guaranteed to give you a competitive edge.
Visit botmtesting.com and begin your free trial to experience for yourself a testing platform that is always in line with the latest in technology.
BOTm is an accelerator BOT for automated and manual testing of mobile apps, developed for both Android and iOS devices. Verify the power of our AI and ML driven platform’s error-free mobile app testing, which is the result of our in-built state-of-the-art app testing technologies. Check out our advanced facilities that include audio interaction with Alexa; and our Appium Converter feature which enables you to convert Appium Script Logs into BOTm Script format. With BOTm you are assured of futuristic world class testing solutions, to secure your mobile apps with error-free testing across spectrum.