The demand for efficient and effective testing methods has increased in the software development landscape enabling organizations to faster and more efficient testing processes and enhance software quality. Knowledge and importance of the fundamentals of automation testing play a very important role for beginners to take on a successful career in this field.
Here we will discover the essential knowledge and skills needed to excel in automation testing. We will also discuss several techniques and the significance of choosing the right tools for test automation and provide insights that can streamline the testing process and ensure robust applications through hands-on learning.
Understanding automation testing
Automation testing uses specialized software tools to perform tests on a software application. Using programming languages to create automated test scripts that simulate user interactions with the software under test.
The basic functions of automation testing tools are to control the execution of tests and compare the actual results with the expected results parallelly. It helps in user interactions, automating repetitive tasks, and recognizing potential bugs or defects in the software.
Additionally, it offers numerous benefits, making it an essential aspect of modern software development processes. Automating manual continuous and time-consuming tasks, test automation helps testers save valuable time and resources and provides benefits to the overall efficiency of the testing process. By automatically performing multiple actions such as data input, user interaction interfaces, and verifying expected outcomes, it allows quicker feedback on the application’s quality.
The importance of automation testing
Automation testing allows for the creation of comprehensive test scripts, ensuring thorough test coverage, and as a result, the risk of undetected issues in the software is negligible. Below are a few important roles in mastering automation testing which we will elaborate on.
Accuracy: Automation testing reduces the risk of human error, ensuring accurate and reliable test results. Additionally, as per the requirements, testers can add more test data in scripts so that it can cover larger tests and give better results. providing confidence in the software’s functionality. Manual testing is performed by human hand manually, which takes hours and hours in tests and can be prone to human error, leading to inconsistent results, and unreliable test outcomes.
Efficiency: Automation Testing significantly saves the time and human effort required to execute multiple test cases at a time. ensuring testers run multiple scripts repeatedly and consistently, providing better feedback on software quality. This efficiency allows testers to test more frequently, detect bugs earlier in the development cycle, and bring high-quality secure software at a faster pace.
Increased test coverage: Automation testing allows its testers to provide higher test coverage by performing a large number of tests by adding multiple test data in scripts across different software, configurations, and data sets Test automation can perform very well in multiple scenarios and extreme edge cases by adding automated testing to your scripts which will help to detect and fix unnoticed bugs by QA team on the other hand that is unexpected in manual testing.
Cost-effective: Automation Testing requires an initial investment for setting up and maintaining test automation scripts, but in the long run significantly it is cost-saving. Automation testing will perform executed tests over and over again without additional costs on multiple software with minimal human intervention by detecting and fixing potential bugs in the earlier stage of the development cycle, so it helps to reduce the overall cost of your software organization.
Team collaboration: Automation testing involves the entire collaboration and communication among team members and other stakeholders. Automated tests work as a shared resource that can be easily managed, accessed, and understood by the entire members of the software project, this collaboration leads to better understanding and communication among the entire team members improving the overall testing process.
Techniques for automation testing
Mastering automation testing, especially framework-based, offers several benefits that are crucial for delivering the best-quality application development. Nowadays Demand for better products is gradually increasing therefore testers need to optimize their testing processes and minimize defects to ensure robust applications by maintaining some practices.
Developing and implementing test automation scripts involves several steps that need to be followed strictly. Let’s evaluate its successful technique in detail.
Identify testing requirements– The most important thing in executing automation testing is to identify the test requirements by inspecting the application, determining the critical areas, and understanding the functionalities that require automation testing. After recognizing the requirement of your automation testing it can be easily prioritized and allocate the test resources accordingly.
Encourage collaboration– The involvement of all stakeholders, including developers, testers, and quality analysts is crucial. Communication gaps between the team members and Complicated processes can also prevent the testers from getting the most updated and accurate data as per the requirement.
Collaboration of all team members ensures that all the objectives are examined, and the efforts are aligned with the overall testing process. It also ensures the identification of any obstructions and challenges that may impact the automation process.
Design and development– Identify all the requirements to design and develop a well-structured test framework and scripts for easy maintenance and flexibility. The design should be in a modular and reusable manner so that they are easy to maintain and update.
When designing and developing test scripts is in process, consideration of various factors like the target platform, the programming language, and the automation tool being used is most important.
Executing automation testing– Executing the automation testing is responsible for setting up the test environment and feeding the test data, and testing scripts will be executed using the appropriate automation testing tools. While implementing the scripts, detecting the failures or errors is essential to generate the final detailed reports for further analysis.
Periodic reviews– During the development process test scripts need to be reviewed continuously and periodically to identify any outdated or redundant scripts. Review the test cases regularly for completeness, accuracy, and alignment with the current application incapable QA analysts face multiple issues related to test scripts and coding-related skill sets. Another way to maintain the code in a better way is by treating test code as production code. Along with that periodic testing of the code should be done to identify the key issues with object identifiers.
Avoid network disconnections– Commonly, a network gets disconnected which is very challenging during the automation testing process that a QA team faces wherein they find it difficult to access databases, VPN, third-party services, APIs, etc. because of poor network connections. Due to these unstable networks, unnecessary delays will happen which hamper the testing process.
Monitoring system– The inability to access virtual environments is another cause of worry which is generally used by the testers for testing software. QA teams need to have a perfect monitoring solution required by QA teams that can help to fix the issue on an immediate basis to stop and prevent the software delivery from getting affected.
Correct data testing– Sometimes QA teams are responsible for testing against wrong data as they might find it difficult to get the right data. The two most essential processes for automation testing are data relevancy and data accuracy to provide accurate results.
Using a robust reporting and analytics solution by QA analysts to achieve quick feedback so that the overall productivity of the testers by working on the data lags.will be enhanced.
There is no doubt that automation testing provides multiple benefits but it is quite often that it has to face several challenges also during its implementation which is avoided by following the above-mentioned techniques of test automation.
Best automation testing tools
Successful automation testing requires full attention, careful planning, and consideration of multiple factors. Ensuring the correct automation tools and frameworks depending on the project’s requirements is essential to save time and resources.
There are many tools and frameworks already in the global market, like LambdaTest, Appium, Selenium, and JUnit, etc, each of them providing specific needs. Selecting the right tools for the desired scripts for automation testing is essential because the efficiency and effectiveness of a successful automation testing process are solely responsible for selecting the right automation tool and framework.
LambdaTest
LambdaTest is a scalable cloud-based AI-driven testing platform automation testing platform, that provides testers with the benefits of Selenium grid, to perform website testing on multiple browsers parallely where they can rapidly increase their release speed with high-end test automation.
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that supports testing of web and mobile applications both manual and automated at scale. It also allows testers to perform real-time and automation testing by providing access to more than 3000 environments, real mobile devices, and browser versions.
LambdaTest has great features of improved reporting capabilities, that offer commands for screenshots and video recording during the script execution. LambdaTest is one of the best automated performance testing tools which identifies the speed and crashes.
In short, incorporating LambdaTest into the test automation strategy allows checking browser compatibility and ensures the website’s web app’s quality, user satisfaction, and success in the digital ecosystem.
Selenium
What is Selenium? Selenium is still a good option for open-source tools for automating web applications. Selenium scripts can be written in multiple programming languages like Python, JavaScript, Ruby, and C#, and are compatible with almost all major browsers like Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, etc offering cross-platform capabilities and are crucial in diverse device environments.
It has a large and active community and it is widely used by many test automation vendors for many test types, such as compatibility, smoke, sanity, end-to-end integration, and regression testing. detailed test scripts can be created by Selenium to enhance the workflow for a more organized testing process.
Appium
Appium is an open-source tool for automation testing for native, mobile web, and hybrid applications on Android and iOS platforms using the WebDriver protocol.
It supports multiple programming languages like Python, JavaScript, Ruby, and C#, and offers cross-platform compatibility. Appium provides the ability to deploy the same app tested across multiple platforms and it can use the scripts and components several times across multiple test cases to enhance efficiency and consistency. It also has a great feature that allows testing on real devices. This could be significant for the testing process.
SoapUI
SoapUI is an open-source cross-platform testing application for Simple Object Access Protocol and representational state transfers. It is a good choice for testing and working with service-oriented architectures and web services as well as Some vital features include automated functional, performance functional, load, compliance, regression, and security testing. It mainly functions to cover web service inspection, invoking, development, simulation and mocking, functional testing, and load and compliance testing to boost productivity
Ranorex
Ranorex is a Windows-based GUI testing tool for desktop, mobile, and web platforms with a slew of important features. This tool involves both testers and developers to encourage dependable and distributed testing. Ranorex brings a range of CI tools, task scheduling tools, and test management features, its great feature of a built-in image comparison engine and the codeless test creation can make testing very easy it can run on heavy and complex tasks with its Selenium integration and smooth learning curve
Katalon
Katalon is a comprehensive tool designed for the execution of automation testing and is fueled by its standout features, across web, API, mobile, and desktop applications, all in one place, without coding. making it a preferred choice among automation testing tools, testers can easily Reuse the test objects, keywords, and test cases, it also allows its testers to create efficiently, maintain, manage, and improve test scripts. The Katalon recorder performs very well in capturing all the objects and is easy to operate making it user-friendly.
Conclusion
Mastering automation testing significantly trains you to become a professional automation tester. Beginners can start a successful journey in this field by understanding the importance, techniques, and tools mentioned above. Ensuring a consistent practice and enhancing testing skills by using available resources of automation testing helps in getting updated about industry requirements.