CrossBrowserTesting.com

A Design, Development, Testing Blog

  • Product Overview
  • Pricing
  • Back Home
  • Free Trial
  • Design
  • Development
  • Manual Testing
  • Test Automation
  • Visual Testing

Make Your Voice Heard in the 2018 State of Testing Survey

July 24, 2018 By Alex McPeak Leave a Comment

SmartBear State of Testing Survey 2018

SmartBear’s State of Testing Survey has commenced for 2018, and we can’t wait to hear from our valued community.

The purpose of this survey is to get an benchmark of common practices, emerging trends, and future predictions in the software testing industry. And, it only takes about 15 minutes of your time to complete.

Over 3,400 respondents took part in last year’s survey. We’re hoping this year brings even more participants to give us deeper insights, but we can’t do it without your help.

As a thank you, we will be giving away $100 Amazon Gift Cards to five lucky survey respondents!

To qualify to win, you must complete all of the questions and provide your contact information at the end of the survey by 11:59 PM PST on Tuesday, July 31st.

The results will be analyzed and turned into our annual ‘State of Testing’ report. All respondents who complete the survey will receive a copy of the final results if they are interested.

Some of the highlights included observations on browser testing, mobile testing, parallel and cloud testing, as well as other takeaways surrounding Agile and automation. Additionally, we received some feedback on the top challenges testers face in their day-to-day.

To see what it’s all about, you can check out the full State of Testing 2017 Industry Report.

Make your voice heard — take SmartBear’s 2018 State of Testing Survey here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: SmartBear, software testing, state of testing, survey

Top Takeaway Trends from the SmartBear State of Testing Survey: Cross-Browser Testing

September 11, 2017 By Alex McPeak Leave a Comment

state of testing survey smartbear

state of testing survey smartbear

Over 5,000 professionals in Software Development, QA, and Testing responded for the SmartBear 2017 State of Testing Survey to provide insightful feedback into how they organize their testing strategy and execute daily responsibilities.

Of special interest to the CrossBrowserTesting team were findings among browser testing, mobile device testing, parallel testing, and cloud testing, which we’re highlighting here.

Browser Testing

According to the State of Testing report, four out of five teams test on multiple browsers, but half only test on the latest versions.

It’s evident that the majority of testers know the importance of running tests on more than one browser. However, the fact that many don’t find the need to test on previous browser versions can hinder an otherwise thoughtful cross-browser testing strategy.

Older browsers are often the most problematic when it comes to rendering code. If browsers are not updated automatically and users don’t take the time to update, their browser is unaccounted for in testing, even if they’re just using an earlier version of Chrome.

Bugs can pop-up even with smallest browser update, sometimes in the decimal level versions. Of course, this becomes a bigger issue the older the browser is, which is why it’s in the best interest of testers to add more than one browser version to their browser testing arsenal.

Additionally, the largest percentage of respondents (27%) test on only three browsers. Again, although teams are seeing the value in testing more than one browser, it’s not quite enough. Considering that teams are only testing a few browsers in the latest version, this leaves a significant gap in a lot of organizations’ web testing approach.

Mobile device testing

Two-thirds of survey participants reported test on mobile devices, and 80 percent of respondents reported testing on more than one mobile device. Unsurprisingly, the most common mobile devices tested are Androids at 92 percent and iPhones at 85 percent.

The majority of testers — 60 percent — are only testing on two different devices. Fortunately, 64 percent of mobile UI testers do not exclusively test on the latest configuration of mobile devices, which means they are incorporating some good practices when thinking about web and browser testing.

Still, 36 percent of testers only focus on the most recent device iteration, which means they are often missing large segments of their user base. Though organizations are making a noble effort to incorporate mobile testing for an increasingly on-the-go consumer, there is plenty of room to expand mobile device testing.

Incorporating older iPhones, for example, accounts for users who have not upgraded to the most recent version. As we’ve pointed out in the past, the array of options on the Android market is ideal for consumers who like to tailor their choices, but it complicates the job at hand for developers, requiring testers to target more diverse platforms.

The issue of fragmentation causes more drastic differences in screen resolution and performance due to varying operating systems, models, and brands, which means that the more Android devices included in a mobile testing strategy, the broader the coverage will be.

Parallel and Cloud Testing

The survey showed that the majority of software teams are only running a few tests in parallel, or none at all.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of respondents are doing some parallel testing by running at least two UI tests in parallel, with the highest percentage of respondents (35%) saying they run two to five UI tests in parallel. The second highest response, however, was running no parallel tests at 23 percent. Though the majority of teams are parallel testing, they are evidently not running enough tests in parallel.

Those running parallel tests are also more likely to use a cloud service for testing than those who don’t do any parallel testing. Fifty-six percent (56%) of respondents who reported doing some parallel testing also reported running some tests in the cloud, while respondents who don’t do any parallel testing also don’t run any tests in the cloud.

Only 30 percent of organizations utilize a cloud service for testing, while 34 percent reported not running any tests in the cloud. This suggests that the total number of organizations utilizing both parallel and cloud testing hovers around 43 percent.

Where parallel testing allows test scripts to run concurrently on multiple browsers and devices through one environment, cloud services offer a great compliment, allowing testers on demand testing environments to run these parallel tests. Though it’s promising to see teams leveraging both parallel and cloud testing, it’s obvious the value of these methods have not yet been fully recognized, and there is ample opportunity to incorporate more of it in order to speed up testing times and increase quality.

Other Takeaways

In addition to the preceding topics, the State of Testing Survey covers trends in other areas including API testing, automation, and development, among others.

A few other takeaways we found interesting include:

  • Web applications are the most common type of application being tested at 85 percent, followed by APIs, desktop apps, and mobile web apps.
  • Agile is the dominant model for software development, but most teams that describe themselves as Agile are only releasing on a monthly basis. This is not ideally part of Agile best practices, which encourages frequent releases, and this response in the survey calls into question how teams define Agile.
  • Test automation is growing as a practice, but still, less than half of tests (44%) are automated on a daily basis.
  • The top challenges testers face with UI test automation include test stability, object identification and management, and test maintenance.

The trends reflected in the SmartBear State of Testing Survey reveal not only the processes, strategies, struggles of software teams today, but also imply the future of these trends and suggest ways to improve current procedures.

By understanding the full potential of software teams and tools among industry shifts, organizations can better prepare to meet the needs of a faster development and delivery cycle.

To explore the extent of SmartBear’s 2017 findings, you can read the full State of Testing report here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: report, survey, testing

Key Takeaways to Grow Your Business from the 2017 Stack Overflow Survey

March 31, 2017 By Alex McPeak Leave a Comment

2017 Stack Overflow Survey

Stack Overflow Developer Survey

Stack Overflow has long been the go-to resource for developers where any question can be answered by someone behind a keyboard in their highly engaged community.

Recently, Stack Overflow released the results of their annual developer survey. This year they asked over 64,000 developers across 213 countries worldwide about how they learn, how they work, and what they want from their careers.

In response, we compiled the major highlights from the Stack Overflow survey that all employers should pay attention to as they build out essential functions in tech.

Stack Overflow Survey Highlights

  • While a majority of developers earned their bachelor’s degree or higher, 90 percent of developers describe themselves as self-taught to some degree.

Stack Overflow Survey - Other Types of Education

  • The most popular language was Javascript at 62.5 percent followed by SQL, Java, C#, and Python. The most favored language was Rust at 73.1 percent, while the most wanted was Python, and the most dreaded was Visual Basic 6.
  • The top developer methodologies are agile at 76.9 percent and scrum at 65.2 percent. The majority of developers check code multiple times a day.
  • Most developers seem to be satisfied in their career choice, though 75.2 percent are open to hearing about new job opportunities.

Stack Overflow Survey - Career Satisfaction

  • 88 percent of participants stated diversity to be very important in the workplace. While only 10 percent of respondents identified as women, this statistic went up from 6.6 percent from last year.
  • When assessing potential jobs, developers prioritize opportunities for develop the most. Other top concerns are compensation and benefits, office environment, and the languages, frameworks, and technologies that the company uses. Also, a majority of developers said they feel they are underpaid.
  • When evaluating benefits, developers highly value the number of vacation days and options to work remotely. There was even a moderate correlation between remote work and job satisfaction with the highest ratings being from developers who work remotely at least a few days each month or more.

Stack Overflow Survey - Job Satisfaction and Remote Work

What This Means for Employers and Recruiters

As employers attempt to build their development and operations teams, they need to be familiar with the needs, priorities, and preferences of developers in the job market.

By understanding the importance of flexibility, professional development opportunities, and work styles to developers, companies can make the best hires, while ensuring job satisfaction and retention. In turn, they’ll benefit from a productive, effective and efficient team that will be invaluable to a thriving business model and product development.

And, perhaps most importantly, we finally know how everyone is pronouncing “GIF”

Stack Overflow Survey GIF

 

Filed Under: Development Tagged With: developers, Stack Overflow, survey

Try CrossBrowserTesting

Everything you need for testing on the web. Browsers & Devices included.


  • Grid In The Cloud
  • Simple CI Integrations
  • Native Debugging Tools
  • Real iOS and Android
  • 2050+ Browser/OS Combinations
  • Intuitive REST API

Start Testing Today

Want Testing Tips?

Want the latest tips & strategies from industry experts right to your inbox? Sign up below.
 

Join Over 600,000 Testers & Developers And Start Testing Today

Learn more Free Trial

Features

  • Live Testing
  • Selenium Automation
  • Automated Screenshots
  • Screenshot Comparison
  • Local Testing
  • Real Devices

Solutions

  • Automated Testing
  • Visual Testing
  • Manual Testing
  • Enterprise
  • Internet Explorer

Resources

  • Browsers & Devices
  • Blog
  • Webinars
  • Integrations
  • ROI Calculator

Company

  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Plans
  • Terms of use
  • Security

Support

  • Help Center
  • API Docs
  • Schedule A Demo
  • Contact Us
  • Write For Us