With the goal of minimizing human interaction and maximizing quality, automation testing involves testing software products using specialized testing tools and frameworks.
Automation testing is carried out with the aid of software that manages the execution of tests in accordance with written test scripts. To confirm the accuracy and dependability of the application, they are afterwards compared with expected results. One can carry out important repetitive operations and those that are challenging to do with manual testing using automation testing. This kind of testing is therefore essential for CI/CD processes.
Why is Automation Testing important?
Testing automation is useful in the following ways due to these qualities:
- Conserves money, time, and labour.
- Navigates widespread and sophisticated software architecture.
- The success of contemporary SDLC frameworks like Agile and DevOps depends on automation.
- Without the possibility of human error, follows test frameworks and methodologies.
- Time-consuming testing can be run for extended periods of time without human supervision.
- Increased test coverage is easily achievable. (Manual testing might not be sufficient to test for every possible requirement.)
- It has the ability to be calibrated to reduce inaccurate and noisy results caused by non-deterministic and random parameter performance.
- Gives workers more time for jobs that are engaging, worthwhile, and non-repetitive, which promotes employee engagement.
- The same code can be used in numerous applications and is scalable.
The 8 Key Challenges in Automation Testing
Testing automation is useful in the following ways due to these qualities:
- Conserves money, time, and labour.
- Navigates widespread and sophisticated software architecture.
- The success of contemporary SDLC frameworks like Agile and DevOps depends on automation.
- Without the possibility of human error, follows test frameworks and methodologies.
- Time-consuming testing can be run for extended periods of time without human supervision.
- Increased test coverage is easily achievable. (Manual testing might not be sufficient to test for every possible requirement.)
- It has the ability to be calibrated to reduce inaccurate and noisy results caused by non-deterministic and random parameter performance.
- Gives workers more time for jobs that are engaging, worthwhile, and non-repetitive, which promotes employee engagement.
- The same code can be used in numerous applications and is scalable.
1. Case Prioritization for Tests
Shorter release cycles allowed little time for the product’s testing phase. An automated testing framework becomes overloaded as more tests are added to it. Tests take longer than expected, and as a result, enough test cases fail, causing timetables for findings to be missed and delays in release cycles. To increase the effectiveness of regression testing, it is now increasingly crucial to prioritise the test cases.
Regression testing ensures that alterations to an application’s code base do not affect the functionality of the programme as it currently exists. It is in charge of ensuring that all of the features currently in use are stable and work properly.
However, there are occasions when there are a lot of regression tests, so Test Case Prioritisation (TCP) is needed to finish them quickly. There are two approaches to this:
Increase the number of tests running simultaneously or decide which tests should be automated first.
If the first is not a possibility, the second raises a number of issues.
● Which tests must be performed daily?
● Which can only be ran once a week, or perhaps less often?
● Can some tests be modified to run more quickly?
Setting test case priorities is a difficult undertaking because it must strike a balance between upholding the established quality requirements and conserving time and resources. It should never undermine the software’s dependability while preserving the
stipulated time.
2. Having effective teamwork and communication
One of the main difficulties with automation testing is a lack of teamwork and communication. Automation testing depends heavily on efficient communication between all stakeholders because it is expensive and provides long-term ROI (Return on Investment) rather than immediate gratification. Are you unsure about how to determine your ROI? You can use the information in this article to determine your ROI using test automation.
The test cases that need to be automated and the required capabilities should be discussed by business analysts, developers, and project managers. It is difficult to create a strategy that will satisfy all the relevant stakeholders. Making the necessary improvements to the product is a difficult undertaking because doing so requires approval from management for the strategic deadline. To avoid this, the automation team should work to establish early communication and transparency with regard to all risks that have been discovered.
3. Demanding Professional Resources
Some believe that because so many test tools now support recording test scripts and playing them back so readily and rapidly, test automation can simply be handled by manual testers or any technical testers. A massive myth, this. In fact, test automation necessitates the technical expertise required to precisely develop and manage test automation framework and test scripts, build solutions, and address technical challenges.
Resources for automated testing must be well-versed in the framework’s implementation and design. Naturally, these resources must possess both strong programming abilities and reliable test automation technologies in order to meet these job criteria. On the other hand, some people think developers can handle and assume full responsibility for test automation.
4. Establishing appropriate automation expectations
Test automation has been discussed extensively. Unfortunately, organisations frequently mistakenly believe that automation will provide the magic to resolve all of their problems. Realistic expectations about test automation should be communicated to top management in a clear and concise manner. To maximize benefits, it should also be carefully documented what should be automated and how much. As was already mentioned, establishing reasonable expectations can be greatly helped by a clearly defined automation plan.
5. Costly Initial Investment
When it comes to test automation, the majority of us concur that automated regression testing is essential and valuable in the majority of Agile situations. But when it comes to the price, we are really concerned. In actuality, the earliest stages of test automation are frequently costly. Building a test automation framework, libraries, reusable functions, etc. requires analysis, design, and construction. In some circumstances, it is necessary to account for licensing expenses, facilitating costs, and running costs including those associated with hardware and software.
In addition, even while we can utilize free open-source technologies to cut down on licensing expenses, we might have to put a lot of work into training, maintaining, and learning how to use them. Actually, many people tend to abandon test automation owing to financial restrictions.
6. Device Breaking Up
The largest problem the app development team is trying to solve is device fragmentation. It alludes to a programme running on a variety of hardware and operating systems.Here, the QA teams must test compatibility across a variety of operating systems, including Android, iOS, Symbian, Windows, etc., as well as across various releases of the same OS, such as Android Nougat (7.0), Oreo (8.0), etc. Additionally, it is frequently associated much more with Android-based devices because many independent producers offer their own “re-skinned” variations of the OS.
7. Inadequate testing facilities
Lack of infrastructure to support sufficient test coverage and quick execution is another significant obstacle for automated testing. Think about the situation when a number of operating systems and browsers must be evaluated for an application. In order to run tests against a variety of configurations in a reasonable length of time, it is essential to execute test scripts concurrently. And in order to accomplish this and support parallel testing, the evaluation infrastructure needs to be quite strong.
This gives businesses and startups a scalable infrastructure to meet their test automation demands. Additionally, it frees up organizations to concentrate more on quality because there is no longer a need to manage internal infrastructure.
8. How to choose the best testing framework or tool
A poor selection of the test framework or tool could make a superb automation test plan fail. The testing method depends greatly on the framework or tool you use, so make sure you do it carefully. To get the most out of a testing cycle, Third-Party Integrations should be carefully considered in addition to these.
Selecting a well-known commercial instrument merely because others in the field are doing so frequently backfires. In order to conduct an effective assessment, tool requirements must be established based on the application being tested as well as feedback from professionals who have used the tools.
Any testing strategy or methodology will fail if the tool used to execute it does not adhere to technical and organizational standards. Any attempt at automation is doomed to failure without the proper tools.
Conclusion
Release software only after testing it on actual hardware. Users will leave if they endure disruptive user experiences when they visit and run into faults and errors that could have been easily prevented.
The advantages of automation testing cannot be emphasized enough. In order to stay up with consumer requests for new features every few weeks, organizations must implement test automation. The value of automation testing can no longer be disputed because poor user experience will almost likely result in software being uninstalled and receiving negative reviews from customers. Without it, creating software that people find appealing becomes much more challenging.
