Application testing is a crucial stage in the product development process. To ensure the highest quality, organizations concentrate on performing all of the tests repeatedly during the development cycle.
Manual testing and automated testing are the two primary testing techniques utilized by technical teams around the world. For some procedures, organizations use automated testing, but they primarily rely on manual testing. According to the World Quality Report, only 15% of tests were automated globally on average (2021-22).
Despite the fact that many businesses employ test automation solutions, they are still unable to make use of the advantages of test automation in the development process. To compare the outcomes with the desired behavior and to record the results, manual testing demands a lot of human labor.
Using test automation technologies during the development and testing process is essential to achieving faster development cycles. Testers can run thousands of various, time-consuming test cases with the use of test automation, increasing the breadth of tests to raise the caliber of applications.
Additionally, it improves test accuracy with little assistance from humans. Organizations typically choose a testing framework to automate the testing procedures. Keyword-driven frameworks, data-driven frameworks, linear automation frameworks, and modular-based testing frameworks are the principal frameworks used by software firms.
Test automation: What is it?
Application testing is one of the crucial components of quality control. Although manual testing predominated until a few years ago, firms have begun to permanently adopt automated testing. Then what exactly is test automation?
Software testing techniques called test automation use automation tools to run the tests. It then produces a report that compares the actual outcomes with those predicted, aiding teams in evaluating the strength of their applications. Contrary to the common misconception, test automation may enable quality engineers to do more tests in less time and with less work.
Manual vs. Automated Testing
Let’s examine some of the key distinctions between manual and automated testing:
-While tests in automated testing are carried out automatically with the use of test automation technologies without the need for human involvement, manual testing is carried out manually by QA analysts.
-Using test automation tools, testers can develop test scripts, automate test execution, and generate reports, as opposed to manual testing, which requires testers to handle every aspect of test preparation, execution, and analysis.
-Because human mistake is always a possibility, manual testing cannot be guaranteed to be 100% correct; in contrast, automated testing is trustworthy because it is script- and code-based.
-Since it can run more test cases, manual testing offers less test coverage than automated testing.
-While automated testing is quicker and more effective than manual testing, manual testing takes time.
Benefits of Automation Apps
Automated testing has revolutionized software development in the current era and has been largely responsible for the recent increase in the number of apps. Let’s examine the main advantages of automated testing that aid businesses in accelerating their testing and development procedures.
1. More rapid feedback cycle
Organizations can shorten the time needed to finish a feedback loop for new software features by using test automation. The development team will be able to address faults in the code more swiftly if the testers can provide feedback on the product more promptly.
2. Testing on several platforms at once
Cross-browser compatibility is a crucial aspect that must be examined while developing software. Given the variety of browsers on the market, manually testing software across all of them is a time-consuming procedure.
3. Scripts for tests that can be reused
The reuse of test scripts is a key benefit of automated testing because creating test cases requires a lot of time and effort. It is always necessary for testers to develop unique test scripts for each cross-browser test when evaluating new operating systems or devices. Testers can better manage their time during testing thanks to the reusability of automated test scripts.
4. Simple Tests Driven by Test Data
Data-driven testing with automated testing tools is one of the most important advantages of test automation. Testers can assess all functionality requiring various data sets using data-driven testing. Data-driven testing offers a number of key benefits that aid testers in accelerating the application delivery pipeline, including:
-allows for the reusing of actions and functions during testing
-isolates test case logic from verification and manual tests data by storing them in a single file.
-reduces the number of test cases and scripts and human error.
-maintains a single repository for all test scripts
5. Exam insights
To know how many test scripts have been developed and what mistakes have been resolved, testers must manually share the inputs of the tests with one another while manually testing apps.
This could make the testers confused and slow down the entire testing process. The testing teams of automated tests can be guided in following the entire process by the test insights produced by test automation tools. The likelihood of human errors can be decreased by technical teams using these automatically generated insights. These insights can also be used by testers to organize their testing procedure in advance.
6. Total Test Coverage
It can be quite difficult for testers to get 100% test coverage for complex applications. This is made more challenging during manual testing because it is challenging to manage numerous test cases at once.
An appropriate solution to this issue might be to automate the testing procedures. By increasing test coverage and helping them test things like user interfaces, databases, and servers, test automation tools can help testers.
7. Test Execution 24×7
The flexibility to conduct testing at any time of day is a key advantage of test automation over manual testing. Since manual testing needs human labor, it is not practical to run tests continuously.
Testers can schedule automated test execution remotely at any time of day thanks to automated testing. Testing teams can provide thorough reports with insights into the tests that have been run for the analysis of apps at any time of the day as per their convenience with the aid of automated testing technologies.
8. Scalability
Organizations must increase their staff when performing a significant number of test cases manually. However, because most testing is done automatically through automated testing, the approach is very scalable.
Even though the testing is done automatically, just minimum human oversight is needed. The World Quality Report (2021–2022) states that an effective and scalable test automation strategy employs AI/ML for dynamic scope selection, detects errors and code backlogs, enhances test coverage, and offers better control and transparency over the testing process while lowering test cycles, security concerns, and risks.
9. Low business costs and better human resource utilization
Even while automating testing procedures may require a large investment from businesses, it can lower their overall operational costs by making efficient use of their resources. Companies may execute testing with relatively little personnel thanks to test automation solutions.
Companies can use their employees to execute high-level duties like planning and product management since there is a shortage of workers for such jobs. These elements will aid businesses in increasing their productivity and profitability.
10. Improve the Standards of Manual Testing
Test automation cannot replace manual testing since many testing procedures include human involvement. However, automating some procedures can undoubtedly assist testers in raising the caliber of apps and cutting down on time to market.
The majority of test automation software is used to verify manual testing. The main benefit of automated testing is that it relieves manual testers’ demanding tasks, giving them more time and energy to come up with better test cases. As a result, test automation always starts with manual testing.
11. Tests for Smoke that Work
Despite the fact that smoke testing is a best practice in the testing process, many organizations avoid it to increase the testers’ bandwidth. Tools for test automation are used to automate manual tasks like smoke testing.
By automating smoke testing for successful build validation, test automation enables testers to assess the stability of a software build. Smoke test datasets are automatically generated, making it possible to assess the stability of software builds more quickly.
12. Improved regression analysis
Application regression testing by hand is a laborious operation. In order to verify that a mistake has been rectified, testers must run a series of related test cases again. This has long been a major source of frustration for developers and testers.
Repeated testing can slow down the introduction of new software and make testers less effective. The best answer to this issue is automated regression testing. Regression testing can always be delayed because test automation technologies can run tests 24 hours a day. Building automated test cases takes time and effort, but it’s a one-time investment that will help businesses become more profitable.
13. Shorten the time until release.
The ability to accelerate application development cycles is one of test automation’s primary advantages. Testers can test new features very quickly by automating the testing process. Strong inter-departmental communication is built throughout the test environment as a result of automated testing’s ability to speed up feedback cycles.
14. Run Protracted Test Scenarios
There may be repetitive and drawn-out procedures for different test situations while performing manual testing. Testing professionals may easily and quickly complete extremely complex and time-consuming test scenarios around-the-clock by employing test automation software solutions. In comparison to manual testing, testers may finish lengthy test scenarios more quickly with automated testing scripts.
15. Realize Outstanding Return on Investment (ROI)
Software development teams require a long time to create and launch apps when manual testing is the sole testing done. Additionally, the deployment of the product or a feature may be delayed as a result of tedious manual quality checks.
The return on investment for organizations may be impacted by these variables. By automating all repetitive tasks and using fewer resources, automated testing can hasten product release time and produce a high return on investment.
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Conclusion
Test automation has the potential to replace software testing in the future with the right set of tools and careful structuring of testing procedures. The demand for automated testing processes is growing since the software business is changing quickly. To take advantage of the advantages of automated testing, such as quicker releases, automated repetitive tasks, decreased time for regression testing, increased test coverage, and 24-hour availability, organizations are currently moving from a fully manual testing environment to a hybrid testing environment.
Testers can automate the testing process and take use of the Platform’s special capabilities by using HeadSpin’s solutions. HeadSpin’s main points of distinction are:
Artificial Intelligence
For the recommendation of human perception and performance issues, HeadSpin has more than 44 ML models.
Automatability through APIs
Numerous workflows can be enabled via a vast library of REST-based APIs without the need for human input.
Extensive Device Support
To enable testing in actual user environments, thousands of devices have been installed in more than 90 places worldwide.
FAQ
1. What is a framework for modular-based testing?
The testing process is automated using this framework. The idea of abstraction is the main focus of this framework. The testing teams build distinct scripts for each application module being tested in the modular-based testing framework, and then they mix these scripts in a hierarchical manner to construct extensive test cases.
2. The data-driven framework: what is it?
An automated testing framework is a data-driven framework. In this framework, test script variables are created by reading input values from data files and storing them there. With the help of this framework, testers can combine positive and negative test scenarios into a single test.
3. HeadSpin Appium Inspector Integration: What does it mean?
The HeadSpin Platform provides the HeadSpin Appium Inspector Integration functionality. This feature allows testers to skip processes like creating simulators/emulators and downloading the apps for testing by allowing them to build Appium scripts using the Appium Inspector IDE directly from the device’s Remote Control UI.
