Personalised Marketing in Applications and Future of Testing

Those of you who have been watching Netflix, you know by now how Netflix recommends movies or TV series based on your viewing preference!

So if you are a fan of Action/Thriller genre (like me), then Netflix will show you other movies/TV series that closely matches with your viewing pattern.

Netflix

This is not a new concept. Amazon has been using this marketing approach for many years now. Similar concept is used by Google search as well.

Amazon

This means that the service providers or applications are storing your viewing or shopping pattern and using data analytics to recommend similar options.

It is expected that such marketing strategy will become more prevalent in future applications where user preferences will be tailored to their shopping or viewing habits.

Some of the other industries where such data analytics will be used are as below:

Digital Signage – using facial recognition system, customize your advertisements so that, based on the customer gender/age, targeted advretisements can be shown in shops or public places.
Retail websites – this is a major avenue of using data analytics for customer preference, same as Amazon, Netflix
Government Websites and Applications – more and more state governments are running different departments as Corporations. Using data analytics of customer interactions will allow these websites/applications to offer different incentives or options
Autonomous cars and road safety
Financial institutions

What this means is that Testers will have to be more involved in data analytics when running manual/automated tests on such websites or applications.

This is evident from the push both in public and private sector on testing roles that involve more data analysis and expertise in database query.

So what does the future hold for Testing? Will Testing roles become obsolete? Will Testers need to become more technically savvy?

The answer is to some degree a combination of all three.

Traditional testing roles where anyone can become a tester will become more or less obsolete.
Testers will have to acquire more technical skills including scripting knowledge like Python, Perl etc.
Companies like Atlassian already have developers doing quality assurance. I do not believe they hire genuine testers (with no development background).
Testers will have to learn various automation tools such as Selenium WebDriver, TOSCA etc. Note that TOSCA is an expensive automation tool. So not all company will be able to afford the licences. It is more than likely that the company would go for open source automation tools such as Selenium Webdriver.
Testers will definitely need to have data analysis skills including advanced level of SQL/ORACLE knowledge. More and more companies will be opting for their IT teams to go over large chunk of data and find patterns that can improve their business by attracting new customer base.
Tester will need to continuously self-improve by learning new and emerging technologies as well as new trends in the testing industry
Testers will need to learn risk based testing approach so that products can be delivered quickly to market (using different SDLC methodology such as Agile, DevOps, iterative)

Here are some good articles on the Future of Testing.