Why You Should Run Automated Web App Testing
Learn different types of Automation Testing
What is Software Testing?
Software testing means testing software from the point of view of the customer/client, not the developer.
Let’s take a real-time scenario. Assume a developer has created a registration page for a web application. The developer tests the registration page and confirms it is working fine. But sometimes, developers forgot to test the registration page in different modes. Assume the password length must be eight or more than eight and less than sixteen characters. The developer may forget to inform the user about the condition that the password length should not exceed 16 characters. This is called a bug.
The test engineer will write cases for all scenarios and perform the tests. And the tester will notify the developers about how the application was tested and what inputs they used, along with screenshots and their comments. Based on the test engineer’s output, the developer will modify the code and ask the test engineer to test again. This process is repeated until the problem is solved.
In simple terms, the test engineer writes the test cases and checks whether the test cases are passed or not — this is called manual testing.
What is Test Automation?
When testing an application, the tester will usually write test cases and perform the test manually. The same testing, when done by using software tools and programming scripts, is called test automation.
In simple terms, automating test cases using tools and scripts instead of using human resources is called test automation.
Test automation tools or scripts use playback pre-recorded action repetitively based on your requirements. Test automation helps testers by providing an easier solution to many problems. Using tools and scripts saves the tester’s time spent on repetitive tasks. Thus, big software development companies think implementing test automation is critical. Small software companies, on the other hand, think it will cost them too much.
It should be noted that test automation doesn’t mean that the tool will do all the tests for you. First, you need to create a script manually to test it using the tool. Then the created script will run as many times as needed based on your requirement without human effort.
When to Use Test Automation?
Here we are going to see when one should use test automation. This question comes to everyone’s mind when they are thinking about implementing test automation. If you are doing any of the testing methods mentioned below, you must use test automation.
- Repeated Tests
- Regression Tests
Repeated Testing:
Yes, if you are doing repetitive testing, then you can use test automation. It will reduce the amount of time and money you will need to spend. If you are doing the same test on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, then those test cases are eligible to automate. If you are trying to find a new bug or changing an application feature, then do not use test automation.
Regression Testing:
Regression testing tests the existing software application to ensure that the application is not broken and is working fine after a new code has been committed/added to the existing application. This scenario is the perfect avenue for test automation. Test automation will drastically reduce the time and money spent. Assume you have a big application and it is expected to take approximately ten days to completely test. Instead of making an employee spend ten days on this, you can automate this type of testing.
Advantages of Test Automation
- Test automation saves time and money by reducing human work.
- It is faster than manual testing.
- Test automation gives us better return on investment and increases scope and coverage of test cases drastically. We are getting better testing accuracy using test automation.
- We can run one test case countless times based on our requirement. And we can run test cases 24/7.
Conclusion
Testing plays a very important role in software application development. I am a full-stack developer. I feel that software testing improves the application experience for the customer/ client. Every developed software application has bugs (major or minor) — this is a very common truth. Every developer and development team must accept this fact. Test engineers try their best to catch the bug in the application before sending it to the client. Today, we are following the agile methodology. Every day the test engineer and the QA teams write and test so many test cases. Repeated testing done manually brings sluggishness to the team and increases costs in terms of both time and money. If you automate testing, it will reduce these costs.
So use test automation tools when handling repeated test cases and when testing an existing application after a new code has been added.
I hope this article will be very helpful to you.
Thank you for reading.
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