As we all know, there are several tools and ways to drive automation testing that includes Web Browser Automation, Mobile Automation which works similar to real-world users who perform various activities like navigating from one page to another in a web browser, moving from one activity screen to another in mobile devices, interacting with different page elements, and performing some tasks like click events, submitting registration and login forms, capturing some data, adding products to cart, filling some forms and so on. This entire process is called Test Automation.
Now, you might be wondering why we want to do test automation and how it is helpful, and what actually test automation is, therefore let me list some good benefits that why automation testing is essential and how it avails the testers.
What is Automation Testing?
Automation testing is a type of Software testing technique to test and compare the actual outcome with the expected outcome. This can be achieved by writing test scripts in various programming languages like java, python, c#, and many more with help of automation testing tool like selenium, Appium, cucumber, katalon studio and so on. Test automation is used to automate repetitive tasks and other testing tasks which are difficult to perform manually.
Why Automation Testing is Essential?
Automation testing plays an indispensable role in software testing because automation testing increases the effectiveness, test coverage and execution speed in software testing. Following are the reasons why automation testing is necessary.
- Manual Testing can become boring and hence error-prone when we have to perform execution of repetitive tests.
- Even when it comes to cross browser testing, manual testing is highly time consuming and testers might have to forcefully skip some test cases in order to submit test deliverables on time to the stakeholders.
- In test automation Human intervention is not required. You can run automated tests overnight.
- Test Automation increases the speed of test execution
- Automation helps increase Test Coverage as well as saves time and money.
Following are the steps in for practicing good Automation test scripts.
- Automation Testing Tool Selection.
- Defining major scope of Automation.
- Planning and Designing
- Test Script Development and Test Suites creation.
- Test Execution and Generating execution Reports.
- Maintenance.
Benefits of Automation Testing.
1. Faster than manual testing, and saves Time and Money.
Automating your testing procedure, your team has to spend less time validating newly developed features. It also improves communication with other departments like marketing, design, or product owners who rely on the results of these tests. These departments can easily check the logs of the automated tests and see what’s happening.
Moreover, a tester can also identify some cross browser tests that are repetitive and sometimes tedious, boring as well as more time consuming when performed manually. By identifying and automating all these common tests that need to be repeated across all combinations of browsers, you can not only save time but also improve return on investment.
2. Test coverage is Improved.
As discussed in the above point, the example of cross-browser testing, if we have to execute repetitive tests on multiple browsers, then manual testing puts a limit on how many tests you can verify at a time. And often testers have to test a few applications in a short time and they are forced to skip few tests which sometimes may lead to risk after the release.
But, by investing in automation testing, you can quickly eliminate this point of congestion. For example, if you need to run a 60-minutes long test across 10 different browser combinations but have only 5 or 6 hours to finish testing everything, then automation is your best bet because by simultaneous parallel test execution you can do it much faster and more efficiently.
- Provides better insights.
- Less Stress on QA Team
- More Accurate Test Results
- Get More Testing Done With Fewer Resources
- Easy regression testing.
- Testers can generate highly configured test reports to help you to analyze hundreds of test case status easily.
- Human intervention is not required, which eliminates human error and so on.
- Faster feedback cycle
- Scalability
- Improving the quality of manual tests.
- Wider test coverage of application features.
- Reusability of test scripts.
- Increases Efficiency and provides better speed in execution of Test.
