Over the years, competition in the digital market is increasing and customers no longer have the loyalty to wait for a product. Developers have to implement some fundamental changes to the testing framework. Using old waterfall technologies will simply slow down software delivery cycles. This methodology also hurts innovation, delays the development process, and creates several bottlenecks throughout the test cycle. In simple terms, the result of test automation is saving money, faster delivery, and the creation of high-quality applications.
It is a shocking fact that a 2021 survey shows that 21% of start-up companies are still using traditional waterfall techniques. Businesses can greatly benefit from moving to DevOps or Agile methodologies. With this process, you can also implement faster delivery of web applications and receive continuous feedback from end users. To complete this process, you need to ensure that you inject quality into every step of the development cycle.
All these processes will also help you receive the necessary set of information and react accordingly. Developers can also unleash their creativity without worrying about tedious processes and tools.
In this article, we will discuss several important facts about test automation and test automation shortcuts.
Reasons to implement test automation
Test automation is one of the most important ways to introduce efficiency into a software test environment. First, many companies use test automation to get rid of all the tedious and redundant testing processes they used to do with manual testing. This whole process saves a lot of time for developers and quality testers. They can use this additional time to focus on other important areas of the development project. For example, they may try to innovate some new features to add to the future app update. They can also work on some important factors to improve the functionality and performance of the application.
One of the biggest myths in the software development industry is that automated testing eliminates manual testing. In reality, certain test processes are almost impossible to perform with manual intervention. For example, test automation cannot help you test the functionality of various visual aspects in a web application. This means that you cannot use Test Automation to verify the location of various elements such as videos and photos on your website.
Exploratory testing also requires the experience and knowledge of human testers. In this form of testing, developers have to find various defects that are not addressed in existing test cases. This is another aspect that can indirectly benefit from the introduction of test automation. To keep it simple, developers will save a lot of time by automating redundant test cases during the web application development lifecycle. In turn, they can use this additional time to improve standards on visual and exploratory tests. So, we can justify that test automation also plays a vital role in improving the standard of manual testing. To create the best automation framework, companies need to maintain an optimal balance between manual and automation testing.
Quality is the key factor
There are several basic principles regarding the quality of an application. Organizations need to keep this in mind as they move through digital transformation. The sole purpose of test automation is not limited to speeding up the development process and finishing the production phase. The entire organization must rethink its strategies regarding the quality of its applications. The most fundamental approach to quality control is that it is a shared responsibility that all development teams must support. This means that all the different teams, including development, product management, DevOps, and QA, need to embrace this mindset. Test automation is one of the key factors that help improve the quality of an application.
When defining application quality, you must also remember the key role performance and availability play. For example, when developing web application tests, you need to ensure that you retain performance even on older devices and browser versions. This process ensures that your app is available to a broader range of audiences, regardless of any device incompatibility. Certain factors, such as geolocation testing, also help improve the quality of an app. This test ensures that the app is available to the audience base regardless of their location. You also need to make sure that slow network bandwidth doesn’t hinder your application’s performance. These are some of the important factors that will help raise the quality of your app.
The challenges of test automation
In this world, nothing is completely perfect as everything has its drawbacks. Automation Testing is not an alternative to this rule and has some important factors that you should consider before integrating it into your test environment. For example, with test automation, you must have proper version control and support long-term maintenance of the test script and final test results. This can be very problematic, especially when you want to automate testing processes early in the development cycle. Developers and testers can completely reject your automation test loops if you rely on poorly developed and maintained test scripts. However, these risks can never overshadow the tremendous benefits of automation testing, especially when your team uses the right tool and framework.
It’s also a brittle procedure for UI testing with test automation. The frequent failure of test automation in the segment is due to rapid changes in the properties of various objects. The test tends to fail as they are closely tied to specific properties of an object. Various internal data shows that nearly 70% of UI automation tests fail due to object defect detection. Due to these factors, you will lose several hours maintaining the test script. As a result, you may never see the true potential of automated testing. Therefore, you should invest in the right tools and frameworks that can help you overcome these test automation challenges. Now, let’s discuss the role of various tools in enhancing the potential of test automation.
Role of tools in test automation
Several tools come with capabilities that can automatically identify unexpected errors. These errors can occur due to the dynamic properties of an object and can cause the test case to fail. These tools prevent these types of failures and provide an opportunity to accept the solution after the test execution process. Thus, you can save a lot of development time, effort and budget during the web application life cycle. These tools come with self-healing capabilities powered by artificial intelligence. This capability helps increase the test automation success rate by approximately 95%. However, you must remember that not all tools are developed with the same intention. All tools are unique and intended to serve a specific purpose. Therefore, you need to choose the right tool to use the full potential of your test automation framework.
During the tool selection process, you should also consider the specific requirements of the project and your preferences to make the right decision. Having a proper idea about the recent market development strategies and automation trends will also help in this process. Let’s consider the example of continuous quality testing platforms like LambdaTest to understand how a tool can improve your test automation experience:
LambdaTest is a cross-browser testing platform for end-to-end (E2E) testing of web and mobile applications in a cloud environment. With this platform, you can perform all your test automation processes on a safe and secure cloud network. With LambdaTest, developers can perform parallel testing of web applications. This means they can run their tests on more than 3,000 browsers, operating systems, and real devices at the same time.
It also helps to test the compatibility of web applications on real devices. With this platform, developers can also check the compatibility of locally hosted web applications. LambdaTest is trusted by more than 1 million users worldwide.
Benefits of Test Automation
Test automation plays a vital role in increasing the depth and breadth of all UI testing. This process plays a vital role in improving the overall quality of the application. Improving quality before the initial release helps reduce the need to fix bugs after the release. Ultimately, this process goes a long way in saving large amounts of money for the company. Test automation also helps improve test coverage and significantly revolutionize product quality. Shortening test cycles will go a long way in improving a company’s speed of delivery. For example, a company can reduce testing time from four months to almost three weeks simply by automating UI test cases.
Test automation also helps companies improve regression testing. This is one of the most tedious processes involved in the application development life cycle. Reducing the time to market for an app can help companies innovate quickly. This process will not only help companies stay ahead of their competitors, but also ensure maximum user satisfaction.
the final verdict
Therefore, we can conclude that however advanced the test automation industry may be, there is always room to introduce more efficient test cases. The UI test automation process is one of the best ways to reduce your test cycles. It will also help a company to increase the overall quality of the application being developed.
Many experts believe that these are some of the most important shortcuts to establishing a successful app development company. It will also help ensure a bright future as test automation begins to expand rapidly in the coming years. Lastly, you have to choose the right tool based on your requirements and ideologies. You can also learn more about any tool by checking out its reviews on various online forums. Here you can find the honest opinions of everyone currently using these tools and frameworks.
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Categories: Technology
Source: vtt.edu.vn