Why No Code is the Future of Testing

Software testing became popular when computer programs became business applications. As software development has evolved with the mobile device market, software testing is also subject to constant changes.

Overall, there is a clear trend toward greater complexity in the testing process. In this guide, you will learn how low/no-code development and testing approaches could help resolve this and other issues arising in the software development and testing industry.

Source

The Core of Testing

Software applications are nested hierarchical systems which, on the one hand, consist of text-like code instructions and, on the other hand, involve input/output using computer hardware. There are three major components in the process of using software applications, i.e., application, hardware, and user. 

Developers write code according to standards and specifications defined by the technical goals. Once an application version is successfully created, it has to be appropriately integrated with the destination hardware and user. This is where the role of the application tester comes into the picture – it acts as an interface or mediator between developers and application users. 

Defining the role of application testers in this broad manner helps us see the continuity in the activities and also helps us evaluate how various technologies and methodologies plugin and affect the overall process.

Evolution of Testing

Automated testing with CI CD –  Source

Software testing strategies have become increasingly complex over the years as the software itself has become more complex. Early methodologies focused primarily on functional testing.  However, as software became more sophisticated, other testing types have been developed to ensure its quality, including user interface, performance, security, usability, etc.

• The advent of object-oriented programming led to the development of object-oriented testing, a more complex testing methodology than traditional functional testing. Similarly, the rise of web-based applications has led to web and web application testing development.
• Testing tools and techniques will evolve in the coming years to meet the demands of new technologies and software development paradigms.
• Open-source testing tools will continue to grow in popularity as they offer a cost-effective way to access high-quality testing tools and platforms.
• In today’s fast-paced world; businesses must release new software quickly and efficiently. As a result, testers must focus on speed and agility, ensuring new software can be removed quickly without compromising quality.

As new technologies emerge, the software testing process becomes more complex because new technologies often require new testing tools and methods, which can be difficult to learn and use.

For example,  Imagine UI testing a VR Game, Usability testing a hologram projector, etc. This sounds sci-fi and far-fetched, but such technologies might be closer to the market than you assume.

Why No-code Testing is the Future

It was unthinkable just a few years ago to imagine a software application smart enough to perform a non-trivial human task. But thanks to Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML), many past notions have already been busted open in content, design, coding, etc.

Virtually every big tech company invests heavily in AI/ML research, and many have already launched their suite of products with varying degrees of success in the market. Microsoft, Oracle, Zoho, etc., have already released their no-code application development and delivery platforms.

To understand the reasons behind this move, let’s look at the current developer markets and the state of low/no-code vs. traditional development.

• Every device and application platform has different programming languages, frameworks, abstraction philosophies, etc. While encountering a new tool or language, developers/testers wonder whether this is a unique approach to solving the problem or a net waste of time in long-term cost-benefit analysis.
• A quality tester is basically playing a see-saw between business and tech teams. Their primary objective is to ensure that they understand what the application is supposed to do and then work with the technical team to help implement it. 
• People building software products must build multiple teams to tackle different device platforms. This is expensive and leaves the product vulnerable to a non-standardized user interface because of the differences in the application platforms. Recently, a short-term solution for this problem has been the rise of cross platform application development.
• Testing modern applications requires implementing a lot of test cases, automation is the most efficient way to achieve this but to implement efficient automation, testers need to know the automation frameworks in depth. There is a learning curve for each new technology, and a developer/tester has to put in the effort to update themselves, or they slowly become obsolete.

See all BrowserStack supported frameworks and integrations

Source

• This usually leads to a fragmentation of the testing ecosystem into two parts; one, which is well-versed with the automation frameworks and the coding about the task; and the other, which is not so savvy and cannot understand the automation process completely.
• Every year, things are updated, so people working on these technologies have to be on their toes quite literally, as with every developer event, they have to update their skill set or they might have to face issues during production deployment of the next version.
• While there are so many complications around getting the most out of each platform, we see that it is not even a guarantee that these platforms will be around for long. Looking at the advent of AR/VR, web3, holograms, and a whole new host of new world technologies, developers are scratching their heads, thinking about whether they should continue building apps or start learning something new.

What is the solution to all this, you might ask? 

The only way these corporations can get away from all these challenges is to introduce products in the market with less strict learning curves for new users to start building solutions on the platform.

So tackling the abovementioned complexity will be a challenge for the industry in the coming years. However, the area of software testing has a set of technologies that helps resolve these issues once and for all:

• Real device clouds: Instead of buying real physical devices every time a new version is launched, real device clouds help you save huge chunks of money and time setting up realistic test environments. 

Not only are you saving resources that would have otherwise gone into the purchase and in-house maintenance of such devices, but you are also setting up a workflow where any required test environment is just a few clicks away.

BrowserStack Real Device cloud offers 3000+ devices and browsers on which you can test your application, from anywhere, at any time.

Try BrowserStack now

• Highly scalable testing from local to production: Developers starting to work on an application really needs to have the best of all worlds when it comes to testing environments with real device cloud. Having the ability to integrate right at your local computer, run tests, and analyze reports on the cloud, which can be easily shared across the team, is a must-need. 

This also provides a great collaborative work environment for all stakeholders to contribute and direct the development and testing process seamlessly. 

From local deployment to production, BrowserStack integrates seamlessly at each step

• Low/no-code automation: Once you have access to all the relevant testing environments, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to automate workflows without having to write the code for it. Low-code/no-code platforms offer exactly that, although to varying degrees of success in the current moment, but considering the significant rate of developments in this field, we can only expect this process to grow simpler and more effective.

In the coming years, you can expect to see more low/no-code testing tools in the market with simple user interfaces allowing testers with little scripting experience to manage complex automation workflows.

Automatic Diff matching with Percy allows for automated visual regression testing

• Enterprise friendly cloud ecosystems:  As a provider of testing tools and technology, BrowserStack has differentiated itself by offering enterprise-level features and stability. Suppose you are part of a growing team and are already using BrowserStack for your testing. In that case, you can consider BrowserStack Enterprise, as it will help you scale the operation more effectively.

Sign up for a free BrowserStack Account