Test, test, test. This is a phrase that has caught everyone’s attention this year as we grapple to mitigate COVID-19. The WHO states that testing is the only way out, as we cannot fight the pandemic blindfolded.

Test automation is only as smart as we design it to be, but automation combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning is what can enable predictive analytics to produce smart outcomes—and that is the facelift quality engineering will soon receive.

From where do organizations—both big and small—get product ideas? Most often, pioneers and revolution makers have ideas that are homegrown, but today the market is such that the world has ideas. Our industry has plenty of patterns, trends, and ideas to work on and augment.

The open source and closed sourced worlds need each other—not only for healthy competition, but more importantly, for healthy collaboration, too. Mukesh Sharma looks at recent collaborative efforts between the open source and closed source communities and what is driving these changes.

Organizations are beginning to give a lot of attention and importance to accessibility engineering as part of their usability efforts; however, this has not translated into implementation strategies that have reached the market. Why is there a reluctance to venture into full-fledged accessibility engineering?

Rooting may help you achieve a few otherwise difficult-to-simulate scenarios, but it comes with its own baggage that can weigh down potential benefits. Testers have to carefully weigh the pros and cons and the true need to root a device for a testing assignment before doing so.

Day-to-day testing techniques, strategy, approach, and automation are all things that teams understand and will continue to implement, but how many teams understand the elements of purpose, belonging, transcendence, and storytelling as they apply to software quality?

Trends are very important to follow, especially in the technology world, for both product and service companies. Mukesh Sharma explains the technology trend lifecycle and what it means for testers.

While end user data protection is important from a business to customer perspective, businesses themselves have their share of data protection problems. Organizations need to find the balance between being in a stealth mode and being too public during product development.

With close to $9 billion being funneled into virtual reality investments in the last five years and the number of users buying these devices continuing to rise, the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) sectors are important areas in which testers should focus their efforts.

When the development landscape is extremely dynamic, a testing effort that is adaptable and flexible with an ability to learn the system and craft scenarios on the go is increasingly important. Testers should be encouraged to be just-in-time testers with the ability to test anything at any time.

Cyber crimes can be more alarming and can have a more devastating impact than even some physical crimes. Consulting firms have stated that cyber crimes are the fastest growing economic crimes today, with a 20 percent increase since 2014.

Amid the chaos and national protests against the demonetization drive that India has been seeing recently, the country is slowly settling into a new framework—the digital payment framework. Mukesh Sharma looks at how software quality fits into a cashless economy.

It is often daunting to visualize how to implement an idea, and this fear inhibits many from bringing ideas to fruition. However, in today’s market, with a little research and follow-through, there are various ways to do wonders with even simple ideas.

While it is a no-brainer that most organizations have either migrated to or are considering a move to the cloud, the stakes for cloud providers and consumers are quite high. Mukesh Sharma details some quality checks to address before, during, and after cloud migration to ensure a smooth transition.

New challenges can certainly be rich learning opportunities, whether or not the effort is a success as anticipated. It's time to view every new challenge as an opportunity to boost confidence. You certainly won't lose—you only stand to gain with this approach.

"No one is busy in this world. It is all about priorities." In almost everything we do, prioritization is the key to surviving in today’s fast-paced world. Prioritization is particularly relevant in the software industry right now because being agile is the latest mantra for success.

Verifying whether a product is being built per specifications is only solving half of the problem. Validation is a very significant activity performed by testers to ensure that the final product is ready for consumption by users and answers an important question. Are we building the right product?

Conscious quality is a quality effort that is independent, end-to-end, and stretches beyond the bounds of the core test team. If conscious quality is not adopted, we run the risk of losing the sanctity of our independence, impacting the quality of the product as well as our careers are testers.

Independent testing is done by those not directly involved in developing the software. The trend of developers covering the entire app development process is popular now, but there's concern regarding whether a rise in app development will adversely impact the positioning of independent testing.

Software companies are increasingly acknowledging the skills people with autism spectrum disorders bring to the workplace. These people are typically very detail-orientated and not bored by taking on repetitive tasks with a great level of precision, which makes them ideal candidates for testing.

The role of software testing and quality assurance is becoming increasingly important in a DevOps setup. This position has undergone a lot of change in the testing practices used, tools leveraged, and the shift in skill set and mindset of practitioners, and testers have a lot to learn from DevOps.

Across disciplines and industries, providing equal accessibility is gradually moving from being “nice to have” to a mandatory aspect of applications. Now is a good time for organizations to start looking at digital accessibility for their products, whether it has been mandated for them yet or not.

The cloud service provider market is a very competitive one, with the many contenders improving services to attract end-users. As this war wages, there is one clear winner: the consumer. Companies are offering increasingly more storage for less money as they battle for users (and their dollars).

You may think, “What is wrong with significant growth?” But if that growth becomes untenable, there are a host of problems: customer complaints may rise, employee dissatisfaction grows, and you can lose track of your original vision. Read on for some warning signs your business is growing too fast.

When it comes to startup success, is it age, experience, energy, passion, or risk-taking ability that makes the difference? Really, if you are willing to do your research and leverage the support available, now can be that "best time" to start a startup—regardless of where you are in your career.

This is the first time young people have had such great technology so readily available to them, and parents face a new opportunity as well as a challenge in how to raise their "geeky" kids. How can you maximize the chance to raise a child whose quest for technology is higher that most? Read on.

A new idea being implemented in software is engineering marketing elements into the product itself. When a suite of products is developed, the right levels of touch points, integration, and cross-collaboration are built right in. This can mean lower marketing costs and higher end-user results.

The next big wave in devices and apps seems to be in the spaces of augmented and virtual realities. The market for both these up-and-coming technologies appears to be very promising, with several large and small players working on their offerings. How could these new gadgets change your life?

Given the increasing demand for software talent, hiring is a big task in the IT world. But a startup has an idea for a platform that would help bring objectivity to the entire hiring process, from data collection to skill assessment to prospect evaluation. Would you trust your hiring to the cloud?

A recent data point in the world of e-reading versus traditional books is very interesting: Physical, bound paper books have shown more growth, selling 2.4 percent more books in 2014 than the year before, while e-books seemed to have hit a saturation point. It looks like the two options can coexist.

Technology continues to make greater inroads in the world of sports, particularly football. Microsoft’s Surface tablet is being evaluated for use by the NFL to rewatch plays and review referees' calls in detail. But critics are saying technology may be intervening too much and ruining the game.

The popularity of mobile devices is making the decision to have a mobile presence inevitable. But the move is not always an easy one. When crafting or modifying a mobile experience, you have to take into account design, user experience, and—perhaps most importantly—extensive testing. Read on.

Availability is often associated with load, but not necessarily with overall functionality and compatibility. However, with the number of apps flooding the marketplace, these other parameters are becoming increasingly important to consider. Building the right support team can help promote success.

Acquisition budgets for technology organizations are going up, and deal numbers are reaching heights not seen since the dot-com boom. It is the collective responsibility of the whole industry—businesses being acquired and those doing the acquiring—to ensure the landscape is competitive yet healthy.

Every time we gear up for a peak-load online shopping day, one of main things is the application’s performance. Was it available without any downtime? Was the response time acceptable? Did the pages load fine? While this information is the main focus, there is increasingly more finesse involved.

Wearables have taken a huge leap in the marketplace over the last year. These devices continue to make inroads in domains such as fitness, health, and entertainment, but a new segment wearables are beginning to focus on is communication. We'll see how people decide to use these new gadgets.

Businesses powered on user-generated content are able to reach the market faster than most other traditional forms of business. But getting users to generate content is not always an easy task. Read on to learn what practices help generate positive reviews, and how can you use them productively.

The last quarter has been busy for Amazon, filled with ups and downs, successes and failures. The interesting takeaway here is that Amazon does not shun failures. In fact, its leaders try to see how to learn from failures and diversify even more. Read on to learn how the e-commerce giant operates.

Facebook is relaunching the advertising platform it acquired, Atlas Solutions, with the hope of pushing its way up in the world of mobile advertising by leveraging the extensive base of user data it has. How other companies consume this data and make the right targeted connections may be a concern.

Most of us look at optimism and pessimism as purely black or white: Optimism is always good, and pessimism is always bad. A new angle adds another dimension, where you identify as either credulous or skeptical. Could knowing "your pair" help you better achieve your work objectives?

Institutes of higher learning are bringing in leaders from certain industries as visiting professors or guest lecturers. This helps provide unique, on-the-job perspectives to the curriculum. One recent example is Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, who will be a valuable addition to Stanford's MBA program.

With so much competition in the mobile apps market, how are applications able to differentiate themselves? Several factors—design, implementation, and market dynamics—go into launching a successful mobile app. Right now, three main types of apps stand out.

Although it may not always be easy for us to make bold decisions, there are simple but powerful steps to keep in mind about becoming a bold decision maker. These include being quick and nimble, acknowledging that you may fail, and recognizing opportunities that come along the way. Read on.

In an initiative to curb cyber attacks, a group of retailers created a forum called the Retail Cyber Intelligence Sharing Center. Stores such as Lowe’s, Nike, and Target formed the center with the goal of identifying new threats and sharing how to mitigate risk, which will help security testers.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently addressed a group of children at an elementary school. There was was one particularly interesting sound bite: "Who succeeds at Amazon? Explorers and pioneers. Who fails? Those who focus on killing our competitors." Here's why you shouldn't obsess over competition.

Branding makes a huge difference in the success and acceptance of a product in the marketplace. The right branding practices can bring in positive visibility, while lack of branding or incorrect branding practices can pull down a well-engineered product. Read on for advice on building your brand.

The Seahawks' victory brings us to a new topic of consideration. Does their win mean anything to the world of predictive analytics, which has been up and coming in the past few years? Predictive analytics beat the experts in judging the outcome of the game. Here's a look at its other applications.

Quality assurance, a widely recognized discipline in the software quality world, is now preparing to head into the next phase—what some call the world of confirmation or the world of test engineering. Continuous and ongoing improvements in product quality are necessary.