Next Big Things In The IT or QA Field In 2024 And STH Review Of The Year 2023

This article is a STH review for the year 2023. We will look at the big things to look forward to in the IT or QA field in 2024. Let’s get started.

First of all, a big thanks to all of you. STH has had yet another wonderful year. It has been an eventful, educational and exciting year. This has been made possible by our readers, students, content writers, well-wishers and the unrelenting efforts of our STH founder, Vijay.

It is once again the time for a round up; to smile with contentment at our achievements, to retrospect on what could have been better and to move forward with renewed motivation & focus.

STH review for the year 2023

The highlights of 2023 have been the following:

• Our courses are doing wonderfully and continue to help hundreds of students. For more information visit this page.
• A new and improved tutorial series on the following topics that will be your reference learning material for years to come:
  • SoapUI
  • Agile implementation – The practical way
  • Accessibility Testing
  • How to test Java Applications
  • Multivariate Testing
  • ERP/SAP Testing
  • Ultimate Guide to Starting Testing Automation
  • and many more awesome tutorials..
• Excellent participation and encouragement through positive feedback on our content and courses from all of you
• Excellent Stats:
  • STH has now crossed 1.3 million page views per month
  • 100,000+ email and RSS subscribers. You can subscribe here.
  • 52,000+ Facebook fans
  • 15,000+ G+, Twitter and LinkedIn followers
  • 33,000+ readers comments
  • and Youtube 4,300+ subscribers and 765,000+ views

Our Plan for the New Year

This coming year, we are going to bring you better content and more FREE learning resources. The one that is taking up our immediate attention is to come forward with a FREE live Project training series for different QA areas.

Please vote and let us know your preference:

Create your own user feedback survey

We are sure we can make this happen. We will cover many more awesome tutorials with your continuous support and encouragement.

Next Big Things in the IT or QA field

Now, this is the part of the post where we try to align ourselves with what are going to be the “Next Big Things in the IT or QA field”.

The past year has seen various changes to the IT industry. We anticipate more changes to come and the following are a few areas that we should look out for:

#1) Hybrid Clouds

What was once a metaphoric passing cloud is now a reality that is here to stay. Its low cost set up, immediate availability, scalability, and instant access are a few reasons in favour of cloud based systems. However, the market is moving into a paradigm shift as to leverage the cloud and on-premise assets to achieve the right balance of Agility & flexibility, Risk and Cost. Therefore, from an IT perspective software teams have to become proficient in identifying the right mix of Cloud and On-premise resources during the various stages of product growth, maturity and maintenance.

The area of QA that could be immediately impacted by the remote usage of resources is Performance Testing. It is the realm of testing that would need its own set of resources invested in it to make it a reality.

Therefore, the leading performance testing tool, Load Runner, now comes with a Micro Focus Performance Center, ALM integration, to make all the resources commonly available across multiple projects and teams across a scalable cloud.

It also helps with Performance Testing being conducted early on in the project by facilitating the integration of performance tests at the code level and making it a process that is part of the entire application (DevOps) life cycle. It is only a matter of time before the other performance test tools will catch on to this change.

So this is the right time for performance testers to dig deeper into this newer approach towards performance testing and become thought leaders. For more information on Micro Focus Performance Center, please check Micro Focus Performance Center.

#2) Model Based Testing

Have you noticed that, now with the ISTQB CTFL Certification there is yet another basic level certification “Model Based Tester”? If that does not show the prominence this concept has gained, I don’t know what else does.

To put it simply, model based testing uses visual models to navigate through the system and design the tests. It uses modelling languages such as UML, Java (other common programming languages) etc. to create these models. Many Test automation tools are also now implementing this innovative method of software Testing and one such tool suite is “Conformiq”. Check out more information about it and explore this innovative testing technique here.

#3) Crowd Sourcing

Gone are the days when software was built exclusively for the internal purpose of the organization. Do we go to the banks for any transactions anymore? We use their website or app on our mobile devices. When was the last time we went to a travel agent when we needed to make a ticket reservation, we again reached out to the site or app?

So, software systems are growing more and more growing towards being directly used by the end users or customers. Therefore, now the thought process has also shifted to the lines of: “if that is the actual user base, why not let them test it too?” Enter: Crowd sourcing (Simply, beta testing).

Crowd sourcing definitely has the edge as it helps get the most candid, dynamic, and actual feedback from real users. This is definitely beneficial in comparison to some hypothetical tests conducted by software experts in a closely controlled environment. This approach is going to grow in the coming years and gain more significance.

To learn more and participate in crowd sourcing, please check out this simple guide to crowd sourced testing.

#4) DevOps and Agile Integration

Agile and DevOps application life cycle integration are two topics that have been the buzz for a while now, but time has definitely not damped the said-buzz. If anything, these continue to evolve and will do so over the next few years. So, we hope you won’t be surprised if this item makes it to the list of “items/trends to watch for in the IT industry’ for the next few years.

As always, STH has some content that could give you a jumpstart on these topics if you wish to give them a go this New Year. Follow the links below:

• “DevOps” an Extension of Agile Methodology
• How to Cultivate Agile in Your Organization

#5) Mobile Testing

Of course, this had to make the list, didn’t it? It is indeed a hot career option right now. Mobile application usage is only going to grow and none of us will dispute that. So it is only natural that when the field grows so will job opportunities for testing in the said field.

Therefore, if you haven’t done so already, try mobile application testing and to help you along, we have an article exclusively targeted at landing a job in a promising mobile application testing career at: Mobile Testing Career Guide

With that said, I (Swati S, STH team member) hope I have inspired you to try out a few new things this New Year and enjoy yourselves to the fullest while you explore.

Thank you once again for your continued support.

Let us know your goals for the new year in the comments section below! We always love to hear from you.

Happy New Year, 2024!