When something’s not working in a business, whether it’s a website outage or a software issue, the company needs to change it, fast
Especially if that something is damaging the way customers perceive the brand. We live in a technical world, and if these problems aren’t fixed quickly, disgruntled customers may very well go elsewhere.
So, how can organisations around the world ensure that these technical problems don’t occur? Step forward ‘AI And Analytics’ – a Triple A rated way of testing for success that is helping companies deliver amazing digital experience to delight users and help prevent them from turning to competitors.
AI and Analytics helps to identify issues quickly, focusing testing on the parts of the digital experience that have the biggest impact on user experience. This includes; providing better information back to developers to reduce the time-to-fix, predicting the impact of releasing a new version, and understanding how the technical behaviours of a product drive user satisfaction and conversions. But this is just the tip of the testing iceberg. As technology improves, so to does the impact it has on the people in the business responsible for testing. Here’s how:
Pest control is improved
Bugs can quickly ruin the user experience, and software testing is needed to halt such disruptions. Finding bugs through manual testing can take a lot of time, which slows down the development process. Using AI and analytics in the testing process automatically hunts and finds bugs and problems in the software, alerting the developers how, when, and where bugs entered a system. Also, since AI doesn’t have to clock out when a shift is over, they can work around the clock checking and rechecking a program.
Capabilities continuously improve
Various tests are necessary at each stage of software development. For manual testers, it can be challenging to meet the demands associated with each test. Not anymore. By using AI and analytics, various tests can be performed at every stage to ensure the reliability and usability of a program. However, this isn’t an us and them situation, and humans won’t be completely removed from the scenario. Software developers and testers should prepare to have AI and analytics work alongside them as the perfect assistants, easing the manual workload.
It encourages human creativity
Software developers must be tactical and creative. This is because front-end users base their experience with an application on their ability to easily interact with the app. Using AI and analytics gives software developers the extra time to reflect on how customers use the software and technology, putting them at the centre of the conversation. While information technology is based on computer functions and a deep understanding of data, it will always be a consumer-driven industry. Having a deeper level of connection with consumers will grow the popularity of a product, thus empowering the IT team to provide better user experiences.
As alluded to above, developers and AI are a match made in heaven. AI’s interactions with the system multiplies the results a business would get with manual testing. Similarly, humans have less and less mechanical dirty work to do with implementing, executing, and analysing test results. However, they will be still integral and a necessary part of the test process to approve and act on the findings.
Does all this mean testers and developers will go the way of the dodo or disco music? There probably isn’t a single testing activity that couldn’t eventually be done better by an AI with enough training data. But, ‘eventually’ sounds like a long time away and while AI and analytics is likely to create new roles and reduce the time spent on mundane, repetitive tasks. After all, who’s going to test the testers?
About the Author
Antony Edwards is CTO, Eggplant. Eggplant helps organizations put the user at the center of the testing process to quickly and continuously create amazing digital experiences. Our Digital Automation Intelligence Suite creates and executes tests, captures and monitors results, and generates predictive analytics to test the true, end-to-end user journey.
