Before, testing software meant making sure the buttons worked. Now it also means ensuring that a smart contract doesn’t lose millions, that an API survives in distributed production, or that a blind person can access your app without barriers.
The QA of the future is already here.
Blockchain Testing: the immutable must be tested too
When we hear “blockchain,” many think of cryptocurrencies. But from a QA perspective, the real challenge lies in smart contracts. These small programs that run on Ethereum, Solana, or other networks are immutable once deployed. An error doesn’t just break functionality—it can cost millions or be exploited by attackers.
Testing smart contracts isn’t just writing unit tests. It’s understanding:
- how gas fees are calculated,
- how a malicious user can manipulate a transaction,
- and how the system behaves in the face of forks, consensus failures, or Sybil attacks.
Ganache, Hardhat, and static analysis tools like Mythril or Slither become indispensable. Here the QA turns into a crypto-detective: validation isn’t enough—you have to anticipate.
Cloud-Native Testing: between containers and chaos
The promise of modern software is clear: auto-scale, survive failures, deploy in seconds. But for that to work, QA also has to become cloud-native.
Today you no longer test “an app.” You test:
- a dozen microservices that communicate over REST APIs,
- running in pods inside Kubernetes,
- with real-time orchestrated data flows.
And functional tests aren’t enough. You must test:
- what happens if a microservice goes down (fault injection),
- how the system behaves under traffic spikes (stress & scalability),
- and how a version change impacts production (canary testing).
The toolkit shifts: K6, Postman + Newman, LitmusChaos, Istio, TestContainers…
Here QA doesn’t sit back to test: they dive into the cluster, monitor with Grafana, and break things to validate resilience.
Advanced Accessibility Testing: because inclusion is not optional
I grew up watching technology ignore my mother, who is deaf. And although we’ve made progress, many applications still aren’t designed for everyone.
Accessibility testing (A11y) is no longer just checking for alt labels.
It means validating:
- that screen readers don’t choke,
- that contrast allows reading with low vision,
- that keyboard navigation is complete,
- that forms work with assistive technologies.
Today, tools like axe-core, WAVE, Lighthouse, and even Figma plugins help… But nothing replaces real testing with diverse users. An app can pass every automated check and still be a nightmare for someone with dyslexia or paralysis.
Accessibility isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s part of quality. And if QA doesn’t test it, who will?
It’s in our hands as testers to drive this change.
