Faster.
That is it. It is a race. You have to be faster than other players.
Same thing applies to testing.
You need to complete the testing as quickly as possible. So that product reaches the market. Sooner than competitor.
In my early days of testing career 19 years back, there were not many automation tools.
There was only one. Better one. Winrunner.
Tool was from Mercury.
Later it was acquired by HP. And asked customers to upgrade to QTP (Quick Test Professional).
Now, it is not the same scenario.
There are too many automation tools for testing. Making it more challenging to select one.Best one.
I have 19+ years of experience in software testing. Worked on various tools for automation.
So,
Do not worry, I will help you. You can select the best tool for automated testing. Best fit for your needs.
I have 19+ years of experience in software testing. Worked on various tools for automation.
Let’s dive in.
Definition of automated testing and its benefits
Automated testing is a type of software testing where test cases are executed automatically by software tools rather than manually by humans.
They can be executed with or without human intervention.Sometimes minimum intervention.
You guessed it right.
There are many benefits of automated testing:
They include :
- Improved efficiency
- Improved accuracy
- Speed of testing
- Cost savings
- Increased test coverage
- Testers can focus on complex testing as boring repetitive execution is handled by tools
Overview of popular automated testing tools
There are a variety of automated testing tools available that cater to different testing needs and objectives.
Many of them are free. Many are licensed ones.
So you have the freedom to choose. If your budget is tight.As always !
Some of the most popular automated testing tools and frameworks include :
- Selenium,
- Appium,
- JUnit,
- TestNG,
- Cucumber,
- Postman,
- SoapUI,
- Appium Studio,
- Katalon Studio,
- Robot Framework,
Understanding Automated Testing
Automated testing is not magic !!
Not all types of testing can be automated.
It is important to understand which ones are suitable for automation.
Some of the types of testing that can be automated are:
- Functional testing,
- Regression testing
- Load testing
- API testing
- Accessibility testing etc
Pros and cons of automated testing
Automation is good. And not so good !
While there are many benefits to automated testing, there are also some drawbacks to consider.
Pros of automated testing (as we have seen earlier)
- Increased efficiency, consistency, and reliability,
- Faster feedback and
- Cost savings (over a period of time)
- Freeing up testers for better challenging tasks.
Cons of automated testing
- Higher upfront costs,
- Difficulty in development of scripts
- Higher learning curve for script developers
- Maintenance of automated test scripts,
- Limitations in test coverage.
In the next part of this article, you will see a more detailed explanation of automated testing tools and frameworks.
Keep watching out for the next article !
Conclusion
Automated testing has many advantages and some challenges. You need to trade-off these factors before you decide to go for automating your test cases in your project.
