The shift left and shift right in software engineering especially software testing has been prevalent for quite sometime now – with increasing intrinsic focus into the system internals and white box level operations emphasized in shift left and user and business centred thinking in the shift right approach.The mobile world though largely remains shift right in its quality approach with a heavy focus on end users and business scenarios. This domain also continues to receive a lot of focus on test techniques that are exploratory and crowd driven in nature.
A lot of manual testers showcase their end user focused thinking and strong black box QE prowess and continue to reign. While this has not changed much, the way mobile automation is being strategized is definitely changing. From a pure web based test automation approach, a lot is being looked at, at a micro-services/unit/API level. This is a change that is markedly visible in non-mobile applications already, but mobile is also moving to this trend in recent times. We have been seeing more client requirements calling for experience in frameworks such as XCTest, Espresso for iOS and Android mobile app testing, even if they had past investments in front end facing mobile automation using tools such as Appium.
As testers build on their automation skills this is a trend that cannot be ignored – in this next wave of automation, just a front end focus will not suffice – a true shift left in automation will encompass a lot of white box testing and the mobile world in its focus to shift left is already beginning to see this in large numbers – this will also enable developers take on a lot more mobile unit testing in true ownership of quality – this will be a visible mobile testing trend in 2018.
