The application development market has come a long way since its initial introduction. The contemporary practice of developing an app was to first identify its use case and then create it. This means the old applications could only perform one function at a time. However, as time began to progress, and people started becoming busier and busier in their lives, this was acting as a huge drawback. Companies started to look for better application development and testing practices to meet the rising demands of the end users. Automation testing was one such modern application development trend that helped to massively revolutionize application development practices. With the help of test automation, the developers could use such levels of application development practices and quality that were almost impossible a few years ago.
In this article, we’re going to discuss everything that you need to know about implementing automation testing. We will also discuss some of the most important points to justify why this testing practice has become almost necessary for application and web developers.
The Base of Test Automation
The name of this testing practice helps us to create a basic idea about its use case. It is the approach of replacing human intervention in the application testing processes with the help of automated testing practices. In this process, the system conducts most of the important practices related to the application testing process with the help of predetermined testing parameters. These parameters are usually present in a test file that the system will use during the test execution phase. The developers also have the freedom to add, remove or edit all of these parameters according to the requirements of the application development project. Automation testing also helps the developers to easily store and reuse massive portions of the test cases in future development projects. A recent estimation suggests that it is possible to reuse almost 60% of the test code.
Since we are on the topic of automation testing, it is worth mentioning that one of the massive disadvantages of this testing practice is the initial expense. This means the developers have to invest a lot of money to get started with the automation testing practice. Moreover, it is impossible to witness any instant advantage or profit with test automation. So, one of the best practices is to consider automation testing as a long-term investment as it will help the developers to utilize the true potential of this testing practice. It is very important for app development companies to properly understand their business tactics and possible returns on investment before beginning the transition.
Another major disadvantage of automation testing is that it often gives rise to the misconception that developers can use this to completely replace the need for manual test cases. It is a misconception because, with the present state of technology, certain test cases are near impossible to execute without human involvement. The best example to justify this claim is the inclusion of visual testing and exploratory testing. We can easily say that these test cases are not only important but also completely dependent on the knowledge and experience of a human developer. So, one of the best practices is to maintain the perfect balance between automation testing and manual testing.
The benefits of Implementing Test Automation
To understand the true potential of automation testing, it is essential to have a definite idea about the benefits of this modern application testing method. They are as follows:
- Since automation testing does not have any form of human intervention, the developers can conduct it without any break. This is one of the major reasons why automation testing can massively reduce the overall testing time. A survey suggests that while complete manual test cases can take almost several months to complete the testing process, automation testing can wrap them up within just a few days.
- Automation testing helps the developers to integrate agile methodologies like continuous development and continuous integration. These are two of the most important practices to improve the coordination between application development and testing teams. With the help of this coordination, the developers can conduct the testing and development phases side-by-side. It is also an important process to improve the understanding of the testing team about the app that is undergoing the development phase.
- Automation testing helps the application developers to integrate several third-party plugins and libraries into the test bench. With the help of these integrations, the developers can not only improve the overall testing experience but can also improve the quality of the application.
- Since automation testing conducts all the repetitive test cases, it reduces the stress on the application developers. Moreover, the app developers can also use this extra time to focus on other important areas of the application. For instance, they can work on several unique features that can improve the functioning of the application in a future update.
Reasons why Automation testing is a Necessity for App and Web Developers
Now that we’ve finished creating a basic idea about automation testing, it is time to understand why it is a necessity for modern app and web developers. Some of the major reasons are as follows:
- Automation testing has an important role in improving the speed of the feedback cycle. The term feedback cycle means the process of verifying whether a new component or element on the application is working as expected. This is a very important process as the developers have to verify the individual performance of all the elements before integrating them.
- As we already discussed earlier, automation testing is a long-term investment. This means that with the integration of automated test cases, the developers will highly improve the efficiency of the test cases and reduce business expenses. This is because app development companies do not have to bear the long-term expense of keeping a full manual test bench. Since automation testing consists of using computers for conducting the test cases, it is often considered a onetime investment.
- In manual testing, the developers have to conduct all the steps related to the testing process manually. On the other hand, in automation testing, the developers only have to write the test cases and add them to the test suite. Thus, this is an important step towards improving the test coverage for the application or website. This process in turn plays a vital role in ensuring that the application is stable and suitable to the needs of the real-world user.
- With the help of automation testing, the developers can add more features to the testbench. For instance, while using automation testing, the developers can simulate a scenario when thousands of users will be accessing the application at the same time. With the help of this process, the developers can understand the traffic handling capabilities of the application or website. Moreover, automation testing can also simulate various real-world user interactions to understand how the web app behaves. These are some of the important features that are usually absent while using manual test cases.
Influence of Tools and Platforms in Automation Testing
All the automated testing practices can be overwhelming, confusing, and often complex for new application developers. However, there are hundreds of tools easily available in the market to simplify automation testing practices. These tools and platforms also help the developers to add additional features for improving the testing quality. For instance, multiple cloud platforms eliminate the headache and expense of maintaining a physical device test lab. Physical device test labs are also popularly known as onsite test benches. They consist of several devices that help the developers to verify the functioning of their app or website on these devices. These test benches are very hard to maintain as thousands of new devices come to the market every year.
With the help of cloud platforms, the developers can conduct these test cases on real devices that are present on cloud servers. The benefits of cloud servers are that it not only helps the developers to execute unlimited test cases but also remove the location barrier. It helps them to conduct test cases from anywhere around the globe. For using all of these features, the developers only have to pay a low license fee. We can learn more about the benefits of implementing cloud testing by shifting our focus towards LambdaTest:
To begin their discussion, we can introduce LambdaTest as a safe and secure cloud platform to execute modern cross-browser test cases on complex web apps. Cross-browser testing has become a necessity to ensure that you provide the best end-user experience to your customers. This is because, with these test cases, the developers can ensure the application maintains its highest performance irrespective of changes in the browser version or the OS edition. LambdaTest has various advanced features like abilities to integrate parallel test execution for improving the efficiency of the test cases. Parallel test execution is the process of conducting multiple test configurations at the same time. With the help of this feature, this platform can improve the test execution speed by almost 15 times.
While using this platform, the developers can import test cases from various automation platforms like Selenium, Cypress, and playwright. One of the most unique factors is that while using the selenium test cases the developers can execute them on over three thousand different browsers at the same time. Lambdatest improves the accuracy of the test cases by integrating different results from hundreds of simulators, emulators, and multiple real cloud devices.
The Conclusive Views
So, we can easily justify that automation testing is one of the most important parts of the modern app development market. With the proper implementation of this distinct practice, the developers can massively improve the quality of their applications. App development companies need to spread proper awareness regarding the implementation and execution of automated test cases. The developers should also understand that several tools and platforms have an important role in utilizing the full potential of an automated test bench. As many experts have suggested, automation testing will continue to gain more popularity in the future development market. It is very important to start the transition. Currently, only 62% of app development companies have completely adopted automated testing practices. The other companies should start making the move to maintain their position in this competitive segment.
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