With passing years, the competition in the digital market is increasing and customers no longer have the loyalty to wait for a product. The developers have to implement some core fundamental changes in the test framework. Using the age-old waterfall Technologies will simply slow down the delivery cycles of the software. This methodology also harms innovation, delays the development process, and provides various bottlenecks throughout the test cycle. In simple terms, the outcome of automation testing is money savings, faster delivery, and the creation of high-quality applications.
It is a shocking fact that a 2021 survey shows that 21% of developing companies still use traditional waterfall techniques. Companies can benefit massively by moving to DevOps or Agile methodologies. Using this process, you can also implement faster delivery of web applications and receive continuous feedback from the end-users. To complete this process, you must ensure that you inject quality at every step of the development cycle.
All these processes will also help you to receive the necessary set of Information and react accordingly. The developers can also let loose their creativity without worrying about tiresome processes and tools.
In this article, we will discuss various 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 in a software testing environment. Primary, many companies use Automation Testing to get rid of all the tedious and redundant testing processes that they were performing with manual testing. This entire process saves a lot of time for the developers and quality testers. They can use this extra time to focus on other important areas of the development project. For instance, they can try innovating some new features for adding to the future update of the application. They can also work on some important factors to improve the functionality and performance of the application.
One of the greatest myths in the software development industry is that Automation Testing eliminates manual testing. In reality, certain testing processes are almost impossible to conduct with manual intervention. For instance, test automation cannot help in testing the functioning of various visual aspects in a web application. This means that you cannot use Automation Testing to verify the placement of various elements like videos and photos on your website.
Exploratory testing also requires the experience and knowledge of human testers. In this form of testing, the developers have to find various defects that are not addressed through the existing test cases. This is another aspect that can indirectly benefit from the introduction of test automation. To make it simple, the developers will save a lot of time by automating the redundant test cases during the web application development life cycle. They can in turn use this extra time to improve the standards of exploratory testing and visual testing. 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 must maintain an optimal balance between manual and automation testing.
Quality is the Key Factor
There are various core principles regarding the quality of an application. Organizations should keep these in mind as they go 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 should rethink its strategies regarding the quality of its applications. The most fundamental approach to Quality Assurance is that it is a shared responsibility that all development teams must endure. This means that all the different teams including the development, product management, DevOps, and quality assurance must embrace this mindset. Test automation is one of the key factors that help to improve the quality of an application.
While defining the quality of the application, you should also remember the key role played by performance and availability. For instance, while developing web application testing, you must ensure that it retains the performance even on older browser versions and devices. This process ensures that your application is available to a wider range of audiences irrespective of any device incompatibility. Certain factors like Geolocation testing also help to improve the quality of an application. This test ensures that the application is available to the audience base irrespective of their location. You should also ensure that slow network bandwidth should not hamper the performance of the application. These are some of the important factors that will help to elevate the quality of your application.
The Challenges of Test Automation
In this world, nothing is completely perfect as everything has its downsides. Automation Testing is no alternative to this rule and has some significant factors that you must consider before integrating it into the test environment. For instance, with test automation, you must have proper version control and endure long-term maintenance of the test script and final test results. This can be very problematic especially when you want to automate the testing processes early on in the development cycle. Your automation test cycles can be completely rejected by developers and testers if you rely on poorly developed and maintained test scripts. However, these risks can never overshadow the massive advantages of Automation Testing especially when your team is using the proper tool and framework.
It is also a brittle procedure to perform UI testing with test automation. The frequent failure of test automation in the segment is due to the rapid changes in the properties of various objects. The test tends to fail as they are tightly bound to specific properties of an object. Various internal data shows that almost 70% of UI automation tests fail due to object defect detection. Due to these factors, you will waste several hours maintaining the test script. As a result, you might never witness the true potential of automated testing. So, you should invest in proper tools and frameworks that can help you overcome these challenges of test automation. Now, let us discuss the role of various tools in improving the potential of test automation
Role of Tools in Test Automation
Various tools come with capabilities that can automatically identify unexpected errors. These errors can occur due to the dynamic properties of an object and might cause the failure of the test case. These tools prevent such sorts of failure and provide the opportunity to accept the fix after the test execution process. So, it can save a lot of time, effort, and development budget during the web application life cycle. These tools come with artificial intelligence-powered self-healing capabilities. This capability helps to boost the success rate of test automation by about 95 %. However, you must remember that every tool isn’t developed with the same intention. All the tools are unique and are meant to serve a specific purpose. So, you must properly choose the perfect tool to utilize the full potential of your test automation framework.
During the tool selection process, you should also consider the specific project requirements and your preferences to make the correct decision. Having a proper idea about recent market development strategies and automation trends will also help in this process. Let us 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 to perform end-to-end (E2E) testing of web and mobile apps in a cloud environment. Using this platform, you can conduct all your automation testing processes on a safe and secure cloud grid. Using LambdaTest, the developers can perform parallel testing of web applications. This means that they can run their tests on over 3000+ real browsers, operating systems, and devices at the same time.
It also helps to test the compatibility of web applications on real devices. Using this platform, the developers can verify the compatibility of the locally hosted web applications as well. LambdaTest is trusted by more than 1 million users all around the world.
Benefits of Test Automation
Test automation plays a vital role in increasing the depth and scope of all UI tests. This process plays a vital role in improving the overall quality of the application. Improving the quality before the initial release helps to reduce the need for bug fixes after release. This process ultimately goes a long way in saving huge amounts of money for the company. Test automation also helps to improve test coverage and significantly revolutionize the quality of the product. Shortening the test cycles will massively help to improve the speed of delivery for a company. For instance, a company can reduce the testing time from four months to almost three weeks by just automating the UI test cases.
Test automation also helps companies to improve regression testing. This is one of the most tiresome processes involved in the application development life cycle. Reducing the time to market for an application can help companies to innovate quickly. This process will not only help businesses to stay ahead of their competitors but also ensure ultimate user satisfaction.
The Final Verdict
So, we can conclude that with how advanced you may be in the test automation industry, there is always room to introduce more efficient test cases. The UI test automation process is one of the best ways to reduce your testing cycles. It will also help a company to increase the overall quality of the application that is being developed.
Many experts believe that these are some of the most important shortcuts to establishing a successful application development company. It will also help you to ensure a bright future as test automation begins to expand rapidly in the coming years. Lastly, you should choose the correct tool depending on your requirements and ideologies. You can also learn more about any tool by checking its reviews on various online forums. Here you can find the honest opinions of all people who are currently using these tools and frameworks.
