2023 State of Test Automation Report Reveals Developer Resource Issues

Testing automation is critical to developer success, but there can be hurdles along the way.

Perforce Software's Perfecto business unit released its 2023 State of Test Automation Report on Feb. 1, identifying key trends in how developers and the companies they work for are dealing with testing today. Perfecto develops mobile and web testing technologies that run in the cloud.

Among the key trends identified in the report is that developer teams are facing an increasing need to be able to explain the return on investment (ROI) for test automation investments. The report also found that test coverage is increasingly becoming a priority for teams of all sizes.

A top concern is a lack of resources for test automation, highlighted by 22% of organizations.

"One of the more unexpected results of this year's State of Test Automation Report is that 16% of participants noted environment concerns as their biggest testing challenge, such as service virtualization, device labs, and test data," Mina Sprengeler, sales engineer at Perfecto, told ITPro Today.

State of Test Automation Report Advocates for More Automated Testing

The report found that 33% of organizations want to do more automated testing in 2023.

On the path to actually automating more testing, DevOps teams will however need to overcome a few hurdles, including choosing the right solution for their team members, as well as choosing the right devices, browsers, and operating systems to execute their tests, according to Sprengeler.

Related:AI-Assisted Coding: What Software Developers Need to Know

"Investing in a low-code or no-code solution will make testing more accessible for teams regardless of coding skills," she said. "And a comprehensive mobile device lab can enable teams to increase their test coverage and automate more strategically."

How to Improve Testing Automation

Achieving sufficient test coverage remains one of the biggest challenges that testing teams face today, according to the report.

"In an ever-changing mobile market, teams must continuously revisit which devices to execute their tests on based on their users, their location, and device trends," Sprengeler said, adding that a team's comfort with risk is also at the forefront of test planning.

Teams must also better understand how and why tests fail. Sprengeler said test failure analysis continues to be an especially tedious part of the software testing lifecycle. In fact, 26% of the survey respondents identified test failure analysis as the most time-consuming activity during a test cycle. She suggested that testing teams leverage their testing platform's reporting capabilities, as well as other methods such as heatmaps, to focus on actual defects instead of environment issues, test issues, or issues with data.

Related:How to Prevent Shift-Left Approach From Making Developers' Jobs Harder

"By cutting through the noise and focusing more closely on this type of failure, testing teams can reduce their time spent evaluating and resolving issues to no more than 30 minutes," she said.

Looking forward, Sprengeler said a top challenge for testing teams in 2023 will be to continue to shift testing earlier into the development process. As testing teams mature in their functional testing capabilities, they will uncover new testing gaps relating to performance, accessibility, test data, and other areas of non-functional testing.

"The need to eliminate these test environment bottlenecks will only continue to grow as teams look to achieve the next level of high application quality," she said.