Automated testing is a trending technique that helps streamline the process of testing the application features without manual interventions. It helps determine even the smallest of bugs or errors before the app is launched. Organizations prefer using automated testing to avoid redundant manual tasks and speed up the overall app validation process.
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In a mobile or web app development cycle, the tests are often repeated to ensure quality. Each time the source code gets modified, there is a need for the app tests to be repeated. As a web app needs to be tested to operate on mobile and desktop browsers efficiently, mobile apps must be tested to perform seamlessly on multiple hardware configurations or operating systems.
As this explains the potential of automation testing services for mobile or web applications, what does it take to make it work effectively? Well, the answer to it is best practices associated with automated testing! So, let’s take this article further and try understanding the best practices associated with automated testing.
Understanding Automated Testing
Automated testing is the technique where a dedicated tool is used for executing all the test cases. It is well-suited for all the big app projects, which demand you to repeat the test cycles multiple times. Moreover, automated testing is also liable for the web or mobile apps that have already been tested manually.
Through automation, the software tester can now dedicate more of their time to other high-value tasks. But, even by adopting automation, the testers will still have to create or maintain the respective test scripts. Thus, it will enhance the overall app quality, scalability, and test coverage.
The test automation of apps drives away all the focus on time-draining steps and focuses mostly on delivering the end results. It enables the tests to be repeatedly performed without the help of any developers. Thus, continuous testing is attained. In contrast to that, manual testing demands the developers to keep replicating every step within the testing process for every test case that is to be repeated for a specific feature or functionality of the app.
Not just that, but test automation is also adopted frequently to prefer longer tests that are mostly avoided during the initial testing. With automation, these tests won’t need manual attention on multiple systems with various configurations.
Best Practices for Automated Testing
Let’s try and learn the best practices associated with the general automated testing approaches. If any app or website needs to drive success in the online market, it is important they provide a bug-free experience to the users on every browser, OS, or device they use to access your brand platforms. So, some of the best practices for automated testing in general are:
1. Decide the Kind of Tests that You Want to Automate
The first thing that should be your priority while seeking automated testing for your website, software, or app is the kind of tests you actually want to automate. It isn’t practically possible for you to automate all the tests associated with your app or software. This is because some of those tests are possible to be conducted only through human inputs.
Therefore, while planning test automation, the strategy should begin by sorting down the type of tests that will benefit you upon being automated. For you to be clear about it, here are some of the tests that you can mandatorily automate, which include:
- The tests demand users with repetitive action and involve the use and analysis of large volumes of data.
- The tests that are most likely to experience human errors.
- The tests that preferably use multiple sets of data.
- The tests will be running on multiple hardware, OS configurations, or platforms.
2. Derive Collective Ownership of the Tests
You don’t have to appoint any single engineer or tester to carry out the entire test automation project. If other members of the team don’t stay up to date, their contribution won’t be effective in any manner for the test to be successful. Therefore, to attain success in integrating automation into the test projects, the entire team should take ownership of them.
Thus, every team member can be aware of the entire process and adopt transparent communication. It will assist you in making better-informed choices when carrying out the tests accurately.
3. Pick the Right Testing Framework or Tool
The next best practice for you to avail the best results out of test automation is to pick the right set of tools and technologies. You will need to pick an adequate tool or framework for the process. To make the right selection, remember these key points:
- Nature of the Software
You need to specify if you are testing a mobile or web app. For testing a web app, you should go with tools like Selenium for test automation. And for testing a mobile application, you can use tools like Appium.
- Align with Coders’ Experience
Get a test automation framework that aligns with the experience of your QA testers. The tools and languages will play a major role in how efficiently the test automation can be executed. Some of the common coding languages that are used for test automation include JavaScript, C#, Java, and Ruby.
- Check Whether its Open Source
If you have a tight budget for app testing, you can prefer open-source tools for test automation approaches. It's essential to bear in mind that not all open-source testing tools are lacking in functionalities. Tools like Selenium Webdriver are one of the most favored tools by automated testers from all around the world.
4. Test on the Real Devices
The best way to ensure the success of automation testing is to execute the scripts on real devices. Device fragmentation poses a significant challenge for nearly all developers and testers. Almost all websites must work efficiently across multiple combinations of OS, browsers, or devices. Every app must be optimized for multiple screen resolutions, viewports, and configurations.
The simulators or emulators aren’t effective enough to replicate the conditions as that of the real devices. Therefore, the web or mobile apps must be tested on actual devices for your QA team to determine if they can withstand real-world circumstances. Some of those circumstances include incoming calls, low battery, weak networks, or others. Cloud-based testing options might provide you with the capability of running automation tests on real devices.
Best Approaches for Automated Testing in Web Applications
Once you have adopted the usual practices of test automation, the next step is to adopt the practices specific to web application testing techniques, which include:
1. Divide the Efforts Associated with Automated Testing for Web Apps
The QA engineers are responsible for creating multiple test scripts for automated testing. Therefore, it is crucial to check their skills and experience and divide the efforts or jobs among them accordingly. For example, writing test scripts for automation will require someone with exceptional knowledge of scripting languages.
So, in order to make the automation tasks work well, you must hand over this job to a QA engineer who is aware of the script languages provided by the automated testing tool. Some of your QA team members might not be skilled enough to write test scripts for web app testing but might be proficient in writing test cases. So, assign accordingly!
2. Create Good and Quality-Rich Test Data
Creating optimal test data is quite useful for running data-driven automation testing. The data acquired should be added to the respective fields while executing the automated tests, which should be stored in the external file. The data might possibly be read from the database or other data sources such as XML or text files, database tables, and Excel spreadsheets.
With the use of the right testing tool, the contents of all of these test data files can be understood better and used the same while executing the automated test. When you are using external data, it will make it easy for you to maintain the tests and make them reusable. To add multiple testing scenarios for your web app, the test files can be easily extended with modern data. In the process, there’s no need to edit the actual automated test.
3. Develop Tests That Are Robust Against UI Modifications.
All the automated tests that are created within the keyword tests or scripts are dependent on the app under test. The UI of your application might change between the two builds, especially when the test is in its early stages. The changes might just affect all the test results or might just make the test automation scripts invalid for future web app versions.
The problem is automation tools make use of a series of various properties for identifying or locating the object. And at times, the tool also relies upon the location for finding an object. For example, if the location of the control caption gets modified, then the test automation script won’t be able to find it while the process is being executed.
As a result, the test will fail! For running automated tests on your web apps, you must replace all the old names with new ones throughout the project. It is essential, especially when you are running the test against a newer version of the web app. By giving new names to the controls, your automation tests will become resistant to UI changes. It will ensure that your test doesn’t break and stays stable.
Best Approaches for Automated Testing in Mobile Applications
Moving onto the automated testing for mobile applications, there are some specific best practices for the approach as well, which include:
1. Develop a Proper Strategy that Runs Your Test Automation Scripts Efficiently
You should have clear objectives and goals while running test automation for mobile applications. Don't forget to establish measurable goals and keep track of your progress. Select the test cases that you feel are the most suitable for being automated. Following that, instruct your team to create concise tests by using fewer steps.
When you are breaking down complex steps into focused or smaller ones, the chance of attaining reliability and stability increases stupendously. Therefore, ensure that both you and your team adhere to that guideline. Define the proper test environment and create the CI & CD pipeline to ensure rapid feedback and seamless executions.
2. Optimize the Test Design and Improve Maintainability
To optimize your automated test efforts, you can focus on creating reusable, maintainable, and modular test scripts. The best practices that will help you attain this aspect of mobile app development test automation are:
- Applying the POM (Page Object Mode), which is a design pattern meant for encapsulating the UI elements and page interactions in a different class. With this approach, you can expect to make the test scripts resistant to your UI changes.
- Make use of data-driven testing approaches to parameterize the test scripts and add data from external resources.
- Identify all the features within the mobile applications that are OS or platform based. For instance, privacy permission or location permission features might need specific test steps.
The Future of Automated Testing
The future of test automation for mobile or web apps seems bright, as organizations are now realizing the overall importance of it. Testing the apps efficiently helps enhance the customer satisfaction quotient for the brands. And winning over customers and making profits is the key agenda for all businesses to thrive. So, some of the things that explain the good future of automation testing include:
- The demand and efficiency of exploratory testing, which supports the accelerated cycles of delivery, is faster than the usual approach.
- The use of microservices testing facilitates the componentization and reusability of the test scripts.
- Crowdsourced testing is part of test automation that is gaining traction for availing efficient outcomes. Under this, the testing will undergo distribution with respect to tools and skills that the tester already has.
Conclusion
Test automation of the web or mobile apps can help you create quality software without bugs or errors that might affect the experience of users. It will eventually reduce the time-to-market for your applications. But, it demands you to adopt some specific practices, which will scale the efficacy of test automation. Thus, it is crucial for the organization and testing team to have unique requirements. Study all of these practices listed above and implement them in a manner that suits the app, users, and the business as a whole.