Sauce Labs today announced the results of its independent survey ‘Testing Trends in 2018: A Survey of Development and Testing Professionals’.

The survey, conducted by Dimensional Research, reveals that agile and DevOps adoption is on the rise, with 91% of respondents reporting that they have adopted agile practices and 17% reporting that they have fully embraced DevOps.

Findings also show that management views automation as critical, with 87% saying that management is on board with automated testing.

The survey highlights the vast complexity of software and its testing requirements, as testers now need to consider multiple platforms, devices, browsers, version of operating systems and more.

‘Bugs aren’t being fixed faster’

Differently, the survey data shows that bugs aren’t being fixed faster, with only 21% of respondents reporting they fix bugs immediately, down from 23% in 2017.

These findings signal that despite the widespread adoption of agile and DevOps and the commitment to automated testing, debugging code quickly remains a barrier to reaping the full benefits of agile and DevOps.

Charles Ramsey, CEO of Sauce Labs, commented: “As the leader in continuous testing, we frequently survey the market on modern testing practices to ensure we’re supporting our customers in their journey to achieve continuous integration or continuous delivery.

“It’s clear from this year’s results that our customers not only need a fast and reliable cloud to execute their automated tests, they also need tools to help them debug faster.”

The value of automated testing

Other additional key findings from the report include:

• 45% of respondents expect to increase spending on test automation in 2018; 55% at large companies
• 56% do as much or more automated as manual testing, a minor decrease from 59% (2017) and 60% (2016).

Browser types

• 90% test on more than one browser, up from 88% in 2017
• 39% test on five or more types of browsers, up from 29% in 2017
• 5% test on Google Chrome only
• 53% test on only the most recent browser version, up from 34% in 2016

Mobile testing

• 77% use a mix of both real devices and simulators or emulators for mobile testing, up from 34% in 2015

Diane Hagglund, principal researcher at Dimensional Research, added: “Software development and testing are continuing to change significantly to solve the complexity and challenges of modern applications.

“Teams are adapting to move faster, and a rising adoption of DevOps and a commitment to automated testing reflects how modern methodologies are becoming more and more critical to successful application development.”

Written from press release by Leah Alger