Understanding the Dynamics of Automation Testing: When, How and Why
Automated testing simply means using efficient software to test the performance of another software. The major testing methods – Manual Testing and Automated Testing both have their own benefits and challenges; in addition, they are important and required in any application testing process. However, it is difficult to identify the amount of manual or automated testing required to test any application.
Let’s understand the core elements of Automation Testing including when to opt for automated testing, how to perform automated testing and why it is essential in a testing cycle to include automation testing.
When to choose Automated Testing?
There are a number of scenarios when software test engineers choose automation testing. For instance, if they have a huge number of test cases that can be time consuming performed manually they would prefer test automation. In case of testing high priority features where they do not want to risk human errors, testing the same features again and again, running multiple test cases simultaneously on different systems, if the testing process is more complex and time consuming if done manually, the software test engineers choose test automation.
Most of the times, especially in large projects when testing is required with every release, certain types of testing including smoke test, sanity test, regression test, performance test, stress and load tests etc. are automated. While using an efficient test automation tool, testers also test the above mentioned as well as cross browser testing along with same features with different data sets, performance test and many more.
How to Automate Software Testing?
- Determine Which Parts to automate
- Choose the right tool that fulfills All Your Requeirements
- Prepare Test Scripts
- Develop Test Suits
- Execution of Test Cases
- Acquire A Detailed Test Report
- Identify Bugs and Preformance Errors.
- Fix The Issues
How to choose the right tool for automation testing?
After identifying the reasons which tests to automate and why to choose automated testing, it is essential that you give attention to choosing the right test automation tool that helps you achieve your goals.
Before choosing an automation tool, you need to identify your requirements and ensure they align with the tool you select. The tool must be satisfying to your testing requirements, supporting the testing methods you would like to implement, suitable to your project environment and also technology and language that are used to build the application. One should always ensure that the tool is not very complex to understand and use as it becomes time consuming to go through all the training to learn how to operate.
Although it highly depends on the kind of application, certain types of tests that can be automated are smoke test, web test automation, mobile testing, sanity test, regression test, cross browser test automation, web services testing, database testing, big data testing, various types of performance tests, functional test, integration test, data driven test, unit test. On the other hand, types of tests which should not be automated are exploratory test, UX test, UI test and API testing.
Why choose Automation Testing?
With the increasing complexity of building the applications, advanced features along with development methods, testing the quality has become a challenging task especially if performed manually. Hence, test automation is a boon, as it not only helps in ensuring the quality but also saves time and cost. Few of the major reasons for why automation testing should be highly considered are- it saves time, money and let the resources utilize their time in making the testing process more efficient, write test scripts, analyze new functions, perform other tests which cannot be automated etc. Following are the major reasons why automation testing should be implemented.
- Automation Testing Ensures More Accuracy.
When even the most skilled and experienced tester can make mistakes in monotonous manual testing, an efficient tool performing automated testing eliminates the risk of mistakes. In addition, repetitive manual testing means more time spent on testing the same feature again and again which could not only be annoying but also one can spend utilizing that time in building new test cases to test even more complex features. If you seem, that you are the only one struggling for most of the test automation investments, then you can go through the following tips that improves test automation effectiveness and increase in ROI with quality output. - Automation Testing Increases Significant Test Coverage.
Leverage automation testing to ensure better quality of the application. One can run thousands of complex test cases which cannot be performed manually. In case of the complexity of the software, manual testers might not be very confident however, automation testers could utilize efficient and relevant tools to ensure its quality, can run the tests on multiple systems simultaneously with various configurations. Automation testing empowers testers to test database, data table, memory and even the set of specific rules to ensure the desired performance. - Automated Tests Can Be Run Repeatedly.
After major or few changes, with each release testing is required. This approach is very helpful when there are consistent updates, complex development structure, frequent changes in the code etc.
In order to perform automation testing and acquire accurate reports, you must have skilled engineers to implement the same. Moreover, a team of skilled people and strategized testing methods will not be impactful if the chosen automation is not efficient and reliable. Hence, it is necessary that you choose the right people and the right tool to meet your goals. Our skilled and experienced engineers can help you meet the desired performance of your application.
If you need automation testing services, consulting, or assistance to accelerate your test automation project, write to us at marcom@localhost.
Source: testing-whiz.com