January 25, 2023

The Latest Test Automation Trends: 4 Takeaways From the 2023 State of Test Automation Report

Industry News

Scriptless Testing

Perfecto prides itself on keeping its ear to the ground of the testing industry and staying as up to date as possible on the latest test automation trends. The testing landscape reliably changes every year, so it is imperative that your team keeps up with those changes.

This year marks the fourth annual release of Perfecto’s State of Test Automation Report — hundreds of leading digital enterprises across industries were surveyed about their testing pain points, testing priorities for 2023, and much more.

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We encourage you to access the 2023 State of Test Automation Report and digest it on your own time to see how it can benefit you. However, to get started, we’ve got a few key takeaways for you to better understand the test automation trends of 2023.

4 Test Automation Trends From the 2023 State of Test Automation Report

1. Lack of automation resources challenges teams most.

In 2023, one of the top test automation trends — or rather most frustrating challenges — facing teams is the the struggle with lack of available resources to implement the proper testing best practices into their test strategies. Additionally, 15% of respondents indicated environment concerns such as service virtualization, device labs, and test data are prominent pain points.

Managers, practitioners, and agile teams are trying to justify and measure test automation. As achieving sufficient test automation coverage continues to be a major challenge, proving test automation ROI, or the business value of test automation, is more important than ever. A few of the best ways to prove test automation ROI for your business are:

Greater test automation maturity.
Reduction in manual testing costs.
Developer productivity gains.

2. Improving test coverage is growing as a software testing priority.

Making strategic decisions about test coverage based on users, their location, device trends, and a team’s comfort with risk have come to the forefront of priorities for organizations. Test coverage is one of the key aspects of a testing strategy that teams are focusing on in 2023.

Organizations will continue to look for ways to expand their test stability and coverage. By keeping test suites lean and valuable, while leveraging testing labs that support the latest devices, browsers, and OSs, keeping up with market changes can be much simpler.

We also see increased collaboration amongst team members to maintain test stability and resolve issues quickly. By increasing visibility and tailoring those insights to the responsibilities of each persona involved in testing (tester, developer, SDET, and agile/feature teams), will increase productivity and efficiency on all fronts.

3. Teams continuing to focus on non-functional testing.

2023 will see organizations seeking to expand shift-left testing with more of their non-functional testing capabilities by focusing on API testing, performance testing, and application security.

Shifting testing left remains critical in 2023. To do so, shifting more aspects of non-functional testing left will be a focus for teams.

Many organizations don’t worry about areas like performance, accessibility, or security testing until the end of each sprint, or worse, only when something goes wrong. The results of not testing for things like performance and accessibility can be disastrous for a company. That’s why organizations are looking for ways to incorporate these testing types into the sprints themselves.

4. Teams embracing low-code/no-code solutions.

Low-code and no-code solutions are continuing to see an increase in popularity. Organizations are investing in tools that can be used by their entire team regardless of coding skillset.

This increase is likely due to the rise in popularity of tools like behavior-driven development (BDD) and scriptless test automation options. Using a BDD framework for testing is a great way to expand automation to non-technical testers. With tests that anyone can understand, automate, and troubleshoot, teams can leverage BDD test automation to improve speed and quality at scale.

Similarly, scriptless testing offers the same powerful capabilities as more traditional frameworks while also making automation accessible to teams of any skill level.

Bottom Line

It is important to understand the latest trends in test automation as you develop your testing strategy for 2023. As this year’s State of Test Automation Report indicates, the main test automation trends include the challenge of lack of automation resources, improving test coverage, a focus on non-functional testing, and the embrace of low-code/no-code solutions.

Wherever your testing strategy falls within these test automation trends, Perfecto is the testing partner that can best set you up for success. No matter the size or scale of your operation, the industry’s most-trusted testing platform can help you optimize your testing for excellence for the coming year.

But do not just take out word for it — read the 2023 State of Test Automation Report for yourself and try Perfecto for FREE to see just how you can step your testing game up in 2023.

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