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Software testing is one of the most essential parts of quality assessment and quality management. This process ensures that the application performs in the same way that it has been intended to perform. A stable web application also ensures that it can provide the best end-user experience to the customers and ensure user satisfaction. In the early years of software development, manual testing was the only possible way to perform the testing life cycle. However, it was a time-consuming process and massively delayed the final production of the web application. The desire for the quick development of high-quality web applications gave rise to automatic test cycles. However, the introduction ofAutomation Testing does not essentially guarantee the success of any testing environment. There are various steps that a company must follow to increase the potential of an automated testing environment.
In this present generation, there are various testers and web developers who are still struggling to find the best ways to increase the potential of automation Investments. So, in this article, we are going to discuss the best ways to optimize your Automation Testing framework.
Get the Best Results from Your Automation Testing Framework
1. Choose the Parts that Need Automation
Many developers wrongly believe that Automation Testing involves automatically testing every aspect of the web testing life cycle. However, this belief is a complete myth considering that it is almost impossible to automate certain parts of the testing life cycle. The developers should also remember that the functioning of the web application will continue to vary from one testing environment to another. Automation testing of a web application also depends on certain factors such as hardware dependencies, testing environment, human interaction, and application intent. So, a developer must perform thorough research on all of these aspects before deploying automation testing and integrating it with their workflow. It might seem to be a surprise but automation testing can result in the downfall of a web application if it is not implemented in the correct place.
2. Divide the Tests According to Priority
Certain parts of a web application play a vital role in the functioning of the core framework. Whereas, some other aspects simply affect the positioning of the visual aesthetics of the web elements. This justifies the fact that all of the elements in a web application do not bear the same priority for testing. So, while implementing automation testing, the Developers must ensure that they prioritize the core elements of the web application over the aesthetic elements. With this process, they can ensure that the application is properly functional before it moves on to the production phase. During automation testing, the companies must also remember that every member of a testing team does not have the same level of skill or work experience. Therefore, they should also pay proper attention to the division of labor for this process
3. Pay Proper Attention Towards the Preparation of Test Cases
It is a good idea to identify all the possible test scenarios and create the testing scripts before starting the automation process. Automation Testing is an advanced form of web testing and requires a lot of automated test cycles. So, it is likely that a developer might encounter some unexpected errors during the testing life cycle. Creating the test scripts beforehand and analyzing the testing scenarios will help the testers get themselves more familiar with the web application and its working procedure. Having a proper idea about the web application will also help them to predict the possible errors they might encounter during the testing procedure. This process also helps the testing team, the development team, and the quality assessment team to work in close coordination for the creation of high-quality web applications.
4. You Must be able to Identify the Process
During the early years of software development, the testing team was only limited to finding errors in a web application. With the advancement in technology, all the teams of a web development company need to work in close coordination for the creation of an Advanced web application. Therefore, the members of a testing team need to have a proper idea about the working process of a web application and the required programming languages. They are also required to identify all the processes that are occurring in the testing life cycle. The primary goal of this process is to increase the work experience of a tester and ultimately elevate their testing skills. Automation Testing massively depends on the synchronized efforts of all the developing teams for an integrated testing environment.
5. Your Automation Tests Should Not Affect the UI Changes
The user interface of web applications helps to increase user engagement and provide end-user satisfaction. The UI of a web application also plays a vital role in increasing the interactivity of a web application. Therefore, the developers must ensure that no part of the automation testing hampers the URL of the web application. The dependency of a test script over the UI of a web application also hampers its efficiency. For instance, the test cases may fail to function with successive updates of the same application. So, the developers must ensure that none of the test cases contribute to UI with the help of UI Objects or by object allocation process. The primary goal of this process is to ensure the smooth functioning of the test cases.
6. Testers Must Use all the Quality Testing Data
To ensure the success of automation testing, the developers must have access to quality testing data. We can define quality testing data as a specific set of data that is optimal in size and contains all the required amount of information. This set of data should also contribute to all the component testing processes. The activity log of the application testing life cycle is also a part of this quality testing data. This log will keep a track of all the final testing reports and also the bugs that were encountered during these stages. All the members of the testing team must have access to this data so that they can smoothly conduct their respective roles. The developers can read this data in any text format like XML, Excel, or text file.
7. The Proper Selection of Testing Tools, Platforms, and Frameworks
A developer cannot perform automation testing just depending on his skills or work experience. In other words, every software tester requires some tools, frameworks, or platforms. It increases the efficiency of the Automation Testing environment. A software tester must properly choose the tools depending on his product requirement and the company brand ideals. With the advancement of Technology, cloud-based testing is gaining more and more popularity. Cloud-based testing helps software developers to test the web application on thousands of devices and operating systems. It uses an online grid-like Selenium for testing. These online platforms save the hassle of setting up and maintaining highly expensive physical test Labs. Moreover, the developers can use these platforms to create custom devices according to their project requirements. Let us consider the example of LamdaTest to understand the concept of cloud-based automation testing:
LambdaTest platform helps users to perform automated cross-browser compatibility testing on an online Selenium grid. Using its cloud-based servers, developers can test the compatibility of their web applications on thousands of operating systems and device combinations. LambdaTest also helps the developers to check the compatibility of their locally hosted web pages. This platform maintains a special activity log to store all the final test results of the application life cycle. Developers can also use the LambdaTest platform to check the stability of the visual aesthetics on the web application. In simple terms, it means developers can ensure that the application retains its UI stability irrespective of the device resolution or the screen size. Similar to Lambdatest, there are many other cloud-based tools and platforms. Developers can use these to perform automated testing on their web applications.
8. You Should Not Automate All the Tests
Even with the advancement of technology, it is almost impossible to automate every aspect of a web testing life cycle. This means that there are certain areas where it is almost impossible to substitute human intervention with automated test scripts. For instance, it is impossible to simulate human interaction by any form of a computer program. Moreover, many experts believe that it is best to check the visual elements of a web application with the help of a watchful human eye. The primary idea of every developer must have been that Automation Testing isn’t completely superior to manual testing. The Ultimate process to create a high-quality web application is to maintain a proper balance between automation testing and manual testing. For this process, the developers must have a thorough idea about the web application and development skills.
9. Conduct a Periodical Review of All the Tests
The primary goal of Automation Testing is to save time in the web testing life cycle. So, it automates all the redundant processes involved in it. This means that a developer can create a few test scripts. They can reuse a major portion of these in various other web development projects. Due to this reason, some company owners tend to overlook the importance of proper maintenance of test cases. Many experts believe that web testers should periodically review their test cases even if it is working just fine. This process helps to maintain the quality of the testing life cycle. It also increases the lifespan of the individual test script. This process also helps to reduce the overall development cost and maintenance efforts.
The developers can also review the script to find the substance that will be valid for a longer period. A Company should always maintain the quality of its testing components.
Conclusive Views
Automation Testing is still in its initial stages compared to the age of the entire web Development Industry. However, many experts predict that Automation Testing will form a vital part of future advanced web applications. So, companies should take this technology seriously. They should try to integrate automation testing in the testing environment as soon as possible. Automation Testing comes with an initial investment that might seem a lot to some companies. However, we advise web development companies to consider automation testing as a long-term investment. With this point of view, they can analyze the real potential and long-term profits that Automation Testing offers. Lastly, we would like to advise that developers and testers wisely choose the automation testing tools and frameworks. These elements play a vital role in extracting the full potential of the testing environment.