Product development involves the critical step of testing the application to ensure the best quality. Technical teams worldwide primarily rely on two testing methods, namely manual and automation testing, and organizations repeat various tests during the development cycle. While some companies automate testing for certain processes, manual testing remains the dominant method, with only 15% of tests being automated globally, according to the World Quality Report (2021–2022).
Despite the availability of test automation tools, many companies have yet to fully leverage their benefits in the development process. Manual testing demands considerable human effort to compare results with expected behavior and record them. Additionally, when the source code changes, testers have to repeat the entire manual testing process, making it prone to human errors and challenging to execute on various platforms.
In the current fast-paced market, companies must maintain speed and timing. To deliver products and updates faster, they need to evolve their approach. Utilizing test automation tools during the development and testing processes is crucial to achieving faster development cycles. Test automation enables testers to perform thousands of different and lengthy test cases, increasing the depth of tests and improving the application’s quality.
It also enhances testing accuracy with minimal human intervention. Organizations typically adopt a testing framework to automate testing processes, with the keyword-driven framework, data-driven framework, linear automation framework, and modular-based testing framework being the most common ones used by software companies.
Automation Testing
Automation testing is a testing technique that utilizes specific software to control test execution and compare the results with the expected behavior. The goal is to save time and resources by automating repetitive tasks and freeing up manual testers to concentrate on more critical activities.
Various methods can be used for software test automation, such as scripts, record and playback tools, and test automation frameworks. Planning and designing an automation testing strategy is crucial to ensuring that it is efficient and effective. This involves using specialized software to execute tests and compare the results with expected outcomes.
Scripts can be created to perform specific tests on the program under test, and these can be run automatically to facilitate the swift execution of a large number of tests. Finally, the test results are evaluated to identify any discrepancies between the expected and actual outcomes.
Automation testing refers to the use of automation tools to execute test cases instead of manual execution by a human following step-by-step instructions. The main objective of automation testing is to reduce the number of test cases that require manual execution, rather than completely replacing manual testing.
Automated testing is pursued to improve return on investment (ROI), expand test coverage, and eliminate human intervention and errors. Recent reports suggest that major IT companies are considering a significant increase in the use of automated testing, with an expected rise of 100% from 2019 to 2025.
Benefits of Automated Testing
Automated testing has revolutionized software development in recent years, contributing significantly to the proliferation of applications over the past decade. Below are the key benefits of automated testing that enable organizations to accelerate their testing and development processes:
1. Quicker Feedback Loop
By automating tests, organizations can minimize the time required to complete the feedback cycle for new software features. By providing faster input about the software to the development team, testers can help developers fix code errors more swiftly. By speeding up the feedback cycle, companies can mitigate the risk of releasing faulty software. Early bug detection via test automation empowers testers to address issues during the development stage, which, in turn, expedites the software development process.
2. Test script reusability
It is one of the key benefits of software test automation. Typically, writing test scripts can be a time-consuming process, especially when different operating systems or devices are involved. With automated testing, however, the same set of test scripts can be used repeatedly across multiple platforms or devices. This saves a significant amount of time and effort, allowing testers to focus on other essential tasks.
Reusability of test scripts is particularly useful when there is a need to run the same test cases frequently or when testing similar applications or software products. Automated testing ensures that the same test scripts are executed consistently, accurately, and quickly, regardless of the number of times they are used. This means that the testing process can be streamlined and optimized, leading to faster software releases and increased productivity.
Moreover, automated testing tools can also provide features to help testers with test script reusability. For instance, some automation frameworks can generate code snippets from recorded actions that can be inserted into test scripts. This minimizes the effort required for manual coding, further enhancing the reusability of test scripts. By adopting automated testing with a focus on test script reusability, organizations can improve their testing processes and achieve better software quality, ultimately leading to a more satisfied customer base.
3. Cross-browser compatibility
It is a crucial aspect that must be verified during software development. However, with many browsers available on the market, manually testing software on each browser can be an arduous and time-consuming process. Automated testing tools enable testers to create numerous test cases for cross-browser testing, allowing the testing team to complete the testing of a software application on various browsers, operating systems, and devices quickly and simultaneously.
Automated testing tools enable testers to run test cases on multiple platforms simultaneously, significantly reducing the time required for testing. Testers can execute test scripts across multiple environments and configurations, allowing them to identify and resolve issues quickly. Additionally, automated testing tools enable testers to perform testing on virtual machines, eliminating the need to set up and maintain separate physical machines for testing purposes.
Parallel testing on multiple platforms also improves the accuracy and reliability of testing, ensuring that software behaves consistently across different environments. This reduces the risk of bugs and other issues cropping up in production, improving the overall quality of the software.
Automated testing provides a significant advantage by enabling parallel testing on multiple platforms, improving the efficiency and accuracy of cross-browser compatibility testing, and ultimately leading to better software quality.
LambdaTest is a cloud-based platform that makes cross-browser testing easier for developers and testers. With LambdaTest, you can perform cross-browser testing on over 3000 real browsers and operating systems, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and more. It also offers automated browser testing using Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Appium and more.
4. Data-driven testing made easy
It is an essential part of software test automation that allows testers to evaluate the functionality of applications using multiple data sets. This type of testing involves using test data from external sources, such as spreadsheets or databases, to run tests on the application under test. By doing so, testers can identify defects or errors in the software across a range of different inputs, making it a critical aspect of ensuring application quality and reliability.
One of the significant benefits of data-driven testing is the ability to reuse functions and actions in testing. By separating the test data from the test case logic, testers can easily reuse test scripts for different data sets, which saves time and reduces the risk of human error. This approach also helps minimize the number of test scripts and cases needed to test the application, making testing more efficient.
Keeping the verification and test data in a separate file from the test case logic is another advantage of data-driven testing. This approach enables testers to manage and maintain test data more effectively and make changes to the test cases without affecting the test data. It also ensures that the test data remains consistent and up-to-date, which is essential for accurate testing.
Storing all test scripts in a centralized repository is another benefit of data-driven testing. By having a single repository for all test scripts, testers can easily manage and maintain test scripts and ensure that they are accessible to all team members. This approach also makes it easier to track changes to the test scripts and ensure that they are up-to-date.
5. Test Insights
Manual testing can be a time-consuming and tedious process that requires testers to perform various tasks such as executing test cases, reporting bugs, and sharing testing inputs with their team members. Testers need to collaborate with each other to understand the test coverage, track the number of test scripts, and identify errors that have been resolved.
However, this manual process can lead to confusion and delays, especially when the testing team is working on a large-scale project or when multiple testers are involved. For instance, testers may misinterpret the test inputs, leading to inaccurate results. They may also miss out on important details, leading to incomplete testing.
To overcome these challenges, testing teams can leverage test automation tools to generate test insights. Test automation tools can automatically execute test cases, log test results, and generate reports. Test insights provide a detailed analysis of the testing process, including the number of test cases executed, the number of bugs found and fixed, and the overall progress of the testing project. This information can help testing teams identify areas that require further attention and optimize their testing process.
Moreover, test insights can help technical teams reduce the possibility of human errors. By automating the testing process, testing teams can eliminate manual errors and improve the accuracy and reliability of the testing results. Testers can also use these insights to plan their testing process more efficiently by identifying the areas that require more testing and prioritizing their efforts accordingly.
Test automation tools provide valuable test insights that help testing teams track the entire testing process, reduce the possibility of human errors, and optimize their testing efforts.
Conclusion
By utilizing a suitable set of test automation tools and effectively strategizing testing processes, the future of software testing can rely on test automation. Given the rapid evolution of the software market, the demand for automating testing processes is also increasing.
Presently, companies are transitioning from entirely manual testing to a hybrid testing environment to take advantage of the benefits of automated testing, such as quicker releases, automation of repetitive tasks, reduced regression testing time, improved test coverage, and 24/7 accessibility. Such an approach to testing will instill confidence in developers, management, and customers alike.
Automating your organization’s testing process can lead to not only time and cost savings but also the delivery of higher-quality products. It is recommended to minimize manual testing as much as possible. In the present day, an automated test suite can simulate the behavior of hundreds of virtual users simultaneously interacting with your application, which would be impractical to achieve with manual testing.
