There are numerous benefits of test automation. By adhering to the best practices in your strategy, you can ensure that your testing process delivers maximum return on investment. Most companies choose automated testing because it shortens the development cycles and helps avoid cumbersome, repetitive tasks.
There are lots of differences between automated testing and manual testing. With automated testing, you can test cases faster and ensure great test case coverage. Automated testing requires pre-written scripts that can be run an unlimited number of times while doing the same test after some changes. The manual testing process is less effective as it’s prone to errors, while automated testing is very efficient as most test cases are executed with tools. In terms of time-saving, you can save much more time with automated testing than when using the manual testing process. Overall, the benefits of automation in the testing process outweigh those of the manual process.
Here are factors to consider when deciding which software testing process needs to be done automatically for better results.
Ease of use
Before you decide on the software testing to automate, you need to understand that not every process can be automated. No matter the technical solution, the greatest factor in deciding when to automate a process is the ease of use. The test framework should be able to support the needs of the testers as simply as possible. That means your team should be able to use the framework even when they are not highly experienced in handling it.
Just imagine the requirement for automating a framework that none of your team members can perform! Do you think it will be carried out effectively? The answer is direct no! When it comes to automating tasks, there should be no learning curve depending on the automation experience of the testers. The process should be friendly regarding compiling, inserting, and running a script. This cancels the need to often research about the underlying mechanics of the whole process.
Traceability
Traceability is about transparent reporting of the data collected from various test cases. A robust and clear reporting mechanism should support a great software testing process. That’s the only way you will be able to analyze all the glitches present and find better ways to fix them. The details of the testing scenario should be accessible and understandable by all testers in the company. This could either be a manager or developer.
So, if all the steps of the testing process can easily be discovered, then reporting and logging mechanisms to carry out the test process becomes easy. The reports should display information like the number of the test cases that need to be executed, the number of those that failed, and the number of the test cases that passed. This will help the testers know what’s going on quickly.
Maintainability
Before choosing any software process to automate, you should first consider the maintainability of the whole process. This plays a vital role in keeping things cost-effective. This means that if the testing process has to modify particular functionality, it should not end up interfering with many other processes, hence requiring a lot of maintenance.
So, if the software testing process can be maintained with ease, then the framework for the testing should be backward-compatible with most of the tests already developed. Backward compatibility is vital for the great maintainability of the whole process. This makes adding more features to software products easier without worrying about the regression effects.
Scalability
The test automation process usually involves a lot of tests like load testing, unit testing, functional testing, and regression testing. Before deciding on the test scenario to automate, you have to gauge the scalability of the testing process. Depending on the changing requirements, the test scenario should be able to be scaled up and down with less effort.
The choice of the testing process should minimize the effort for the progress needed down the line. Avoid settling on test cases that are only built to test specific cases and cannot be used for any other purpose. That means you will have to add new testing capabilities every time you need to use the test case for another purpose.
Reusability
When dealing with repetitive software testing processes, you need to consider reusability. This is one of the primary benefits of every successful test automation scenario. That’s why it’s important to prioritize this factor in your software testing framework. Are the test scripts created for particular functions reusable? If yes, then that’s a great software test process for automation.
That means the testers won’t have to continuously create new test scripts as they can modify the existing ones and use them to add additional features. So, reusability is key to meeting budget demands and rapid software release schedules.
Conclusion
You have to consider several factors when deciding which software testing process needs to be automated for better results. The points mentioned above represent some of the great factors that will ensure that you get great results depending on the test case you are implementing. Each of the points is equally important, and that’s why you should treat each of them with a lot of seriousness.
