What is Automation testing and why use it?
“Automation testing is a technique uses an application to implement entire life cycle of the software in less time and provides efficiency and effectiveness to the testing software. — Software Testing Class”
“With automation, missing tests or taking some test results for granted will never happen. It ensures 100% coverage of given module each and every time the same is tested.”
The above lines sum up your preliminary questions quite well. That said, it (setting up automation testing) is easier said than done.
Your test automation strategy must be result-oriented and it is only possible by developing a strategy that fits well with your teams and organization at large. Is there a defined pathway for that? Of course not, but we can suggest the key elements that can lead to an effective test automation strategy.
What makes automate testing worth to your investment — time and money?
Automated software testing is important due to following reasons:
- Manual Testing of all workflows, all fields , all negative scenarios is time and cost consuming
- It is difficult to test for multilingual sites manually
- Automation does not require Human intervention. You can run automated test unattended (overnight)
- Automation increases speed of test execution
- Automation helps increase Test Coverage
- Manual Testing can become boring and hence error prone.
Some of the key reasons for application failure rate are bad user experience and inadequate testing of the application. In the current digital landscape, there are various factors that can undermine the performance of your application.
Testing is multifaceted and covers an entire gamut of activities to ensure that the Application Under Test (AUT) performs flawlessly under pressure, is secure, and is robust for the volatile market conditions.
The key is to build an effective test automation strategy to eliminate the errors that can be expected in manual testing. A Test Automation framework enables teams to cut down the costs and efforts in the testing process. Most importantly, it makes the process repeatable, which helps confirm the functionalities of the application.
It also adds the reusability factor, where the test automation framework, when updated with new test cases can be reused for any other testing project.
When does it makes sense to automate your testing process?
Test cases to be automated can be selected using the following criterion to increase the automation ROI
- High Risk — Business Critical test cases
- Test cases that are executed repeatedly
- Test Cases that are very tedious or difficult to perform manually
- Test Cases which are time consuming
The idea or ultimate objective is to release a quality application at speed. This makes Test Automation inseparable from Agile and DevOps approach, as it makes the process faster and repeatable. It also improves the overall test coverage and reduces the software testing efforts.
Let us know what your thoughts are or how your experience has been with this.