A Complete Guide to Automated Software Testing and its Process
Software testing is a continuous process in the software development lifecycle to ensure quality and robust software applications for the end users. It can be performed either manually or through automated software testing. Manual software testing is a time-consuming and expensive process that requires constant checking of the software’s features and functions.
On the other hand, automation software testing promises to run the test at no additional costs and save time compared to manual testing. It offers affordable software tools for identifying bugs and errors in the software development process. Additionally, it increases the test coverage, efficiency, and effectiveness of the software, improving the accuracy of the applications. So what is automated testing?
Automation software testing involves a set of software tools to automate manual testing of the software directly without human intervention. It verifies and validates the quality of the digital product and checks if it aligns with the client’s expectations and requirements. Besides, it improves the scalability of the testing since it operates 24/7 and streamlines the QA process.
As a result, it helps the business save time and development costs by avoiding issues early during the software development process. It increases the conversion rates and revenue of the firms.
What are the advantages of automated testing?
As we mentioned earlier, automation testing offers many benefits over manual testing. It helps create a track record of pre-defined testing actions and oversees the manual testing results. Therefore, it is more reliable than manual testing. Besides, automated testing requires only a fraction of the time, and it is less likely to make mistakes when compared to manual testing.
Now, let’s look further into the difference between automation and manual testing by pointing out the automated testing advantages:
● Improved efficiency and accuracy:
Since automated testing involves the automation of testing procedures, it improves the efficiency of the software applications. It detects and eliminates the errors that can later lead to software failure. Besides, it lessens the chances of making mistakes by the testers during manual testing. As a result, it records precisely the results after each testing stage and increases the effectiveness of the software.
● Faster feedback:
Test automation allows the developers to fix the bugs in the software development since it allows the testers to identify issues in the early stage itself. As a result, there will be a faster feedback cycle during the development process, enabling the business to deliver bug-free software to the audience.
● Reduced testing costs:
One of the advantages of automated testing is that it is cheaper than manual testing. It can run over and over again in less time without additional operational costs and labor. Moreover, it requires no supervision or human intervention.
● Improve software quality:
Automation testing provides the best software tools to streamline the QA process and ease time-consuming tasks involved in the software development process. Thus it ensures quality through its constant re-test procedure.
● Reduce the risk of defects:
Compared to manual testing, test automation helps testers and developers by providing increased test coverage and notifying them about the issues. As a result, it keeps track of the testing records to mitigate the risk of failures.
What are the types of automated software testing?
Since software application changes are frequent, the software development team has to test for potential errors and bugs caused by modifications. Therefore, it is crucial to know the myriad options for test automation service offerings in the market. It helps to give insights into the best automation testing type ideal for the QA process. Furthermore, choosing the appropriate testing types will deliver the desired outcome for the business.
Given below are some of the significant types of automation testing:
Unit testing:
Unit testing involves testing individual components or objects in an application to ensure they are working as expected. The developer performs unit testing during the initial stage of the software development process. Besides, it helps the developer understand the functionality of each element in the application.
Integration testing:
Contrary to unit testing, integration testing evaluates various units of the software application and tests as a group. Besides, integration testing is the second phase of the software testing process after unit testing. It ensures seamless communication between the application components to avoid glitches.
End-to-end testing:
End-to-end testing involves testing the software application as a whole. It ensures proper workflow of the application development from start to end. Moreover, it checks the software applications’ data integrity, components, and behavior for seamless flow.
How to overcome the challenges of automated testing?
Though test automation eases the stressful activities involved in the software development lifecycle, it is essential to implement the test correctly to launch dynamic software applications. It has become a crucial procedure in the development process since it helps achieve business goals and objectives faster.
However, automated software testing can pose a few challenges, like finding the right tools, high initial setup costs, maintenance overhead, and limited scope of testing. Nevertheless, there are ways to overcome these challenges, as follows:
● Choosing appropriate tools or frameworks:
One of the challenges of automation testing is finding the best-suited tool. Since there are many open-source and licensed software testing tools, the team has to check and validate the best one depending on the application and level of automation testing. In other words, find the appropriate framework considering its usability, maintainability, and scalability.
● Incorporating effectual communication:
A committed team with proper communication flow is essential for automation testing. Further, leveraging the testing requires extensive planning, team collaboration, and data exchange.
● Right testing strategies:
Automation testing depends on an appropriate testing approach and plan. It must address the eventual goals, risks, tools to use, environment to set, and communication process.
● Finding experts:
Skilled and experienced talents are in high demand for implementing automation testing since automation testing needs proper planning, from designing the framework to writing test scripts. They must be aware of the latest tools and technologies available in the market and must have in-hand experience.
● Initial Budget:
Though automated software testing costs less operational charges, it comes with a high initial investment. It is due to the need for tools, personnel, resources, infrastructure, and licensing costs. However, with effective and efficient results, automation testing helps to generate a high return on investment (ROI).
Best practices for automation software testing
Adhering to best industrial practices for automation software testing ensures software quality and efficiency and, thus, delivers a positive return on investment (ROI). It helps save the time and resources typically required for software testing.
The following are the best practices for automation testing:
● Test automation strategy:
It is significant to develop a strong strategy for successful automation testing. The software development team must define the scope of the testing, risks, priorities, affectability, framework, and estimated costs and time.
● Test case design:
The team must decide on the test case to automate, which requires a large amount of data to perform the testing. Therefore a proper plan and design structure are needed for automation testing. In the design, the team should define the goals, type of test to implement, tools to use, etc. As a result, they can write test scripts for a seamless workflow.
● Test data management:
Test data management, or TDM, helps to accelerate software application development that includes planning, designing, and managing a diverse range of test data. As a result, it helps to increase efficiency, loading speed, code quality, etc.
Tools and technologies for automation testing
Many best software test automation tools and technologies are available to implement successful automated software testing. However, it is necessary to select the right automation tool considering the type of software and level of automation needed.
The following are the top automation tools for automation testing:
- Selenium
- Appium
- JUnit
- TestNG
Conclusion
The performance and quality of software depend on many determining factors. One among them is software testing. It ensures the software application is bug and glitch-free for giving dynamic and robust applications to the end users. Software testing can be either operated manually or through automation. However, automated software testing has gained high demand because it saves time and resources compared to manual testing. Moreover, many automation software tools are available in the market for implementing successful testing throughout the software development lifecycle.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is automation testing important for software development?
Automation testing is significant for software development since it ensures the software is bug-free and improves the software application quality. Moreover, it saves time and additional operational costs compared to manual testing. It increases the test coverage, detects errors early, boosts the business and ROI, and delivers the product within the stipulated timeline to the market.
- How can automation software testing improve the quality of the product?
Automation software testing improves the quality of the product by the following:
- Enhancing the test coverage
- increasing efficiency of the testing
- Early detection of bugs
- Less possibility of manual errors
- Use of best software tools and technologies
- What are the challenges associated with automated software testing?
Though automation testing offers many benefits, it faces a few challenges. The following are the top challenges associated with automation software testing:
- Selecting appropriate testing tools or framework
- Proper communication and collaboration in the team
- High initial investment
- Finding experienced talents
- Effective test strategy
- How to find the best-automated software testing services?
There are myriad options for automated testing services companies. However, firms need to find the best-suited service for your business application to meet your requirements and needs. You can select a suitable testing company considering budget, expertise, industrial experience, and reputation.
