The ecommerce market is growing and becoming more competitive every day. This means, the customer experience is going to play an even bigger role in 2013. Online shops are expected to be stylish and beautifully designed � but customers are getting more demanding in terms of performance and usability on multiple devices.
The following topics are our point of view on the most important issue that will keep us busy in 2013.
1. Mobile Usability
Mobile shopping is growing really fast. You might think that every company is ready for this, but that's not what we see. Many mobile shops display basically the standard shop but smaller. This is often a disaster in terms of usability and wastes a lot of potential.
2. Client Side Performance
No need to discuss the importance of lightning fast websites. Considering the huge success of powerful JavaScript libraries and the integration of third party apps, the client side performance will suffer. So the focus will be on testing the browser performance impression in combination to the server performance.
3. Automated Cross-Browser Testing
In a perfect world, every site behaves the same, no matter which browser is used. But we do not live in a perfect word. So not only test automation is important, but being able to perform them on different platforms running different browsers.
4. Mobile Performance
Okay, we have mentioned the mobile sector before, but nonetheless in times of infinite bandwidth not everybody keeps in mind that mobile surfing is usually much slower than browsing the web with a regular computer. Standard performance tests will be extended to mobile sites covering bandwidth as well as client site issues.
5. More Realistic Load Tests
Do real users do the same stuff again and again on a web site? Do customers really search for one specific product, add it to the cart, and order it repeatedly?
We are convinced that load tests have to simulate the real world as best as possible. Let the users browse freely and order random products with random quantities. User behaviour variance during load tests is the key to detailed insights such as cache patterns, memory behavior, and load distribution. Additionally it makes tests more robust, because the data dependencies becoming smaller.
6. Exploratory Testing
Our world is moving faster, agile software development cycles are getting more and more popular. Is it about time to adjust testing to the more exploratory approach? The ability to deliver creative and quick results without having to set up a full-blown test project is becoming increasingly important. Test design and execution are performed simultaneously.
Exploratory testing requires highly skilled testers who are able to produce results quickly and consistently. Testers who work structured and cover all bases but do not spent days or weeks organizing and maintaining test cases. Testers who can apply their knowledge to any application in no time. Testers who are pair with the developers. We feel well prepared for that.
