Introduction
In today´s fast moving world, it is a challenge for any company to continuously maintain and improve the quality and efficiency of software systems development. In many software projects, testing is neglected because of time or cost constraints. This leads to a lack of product quality, followed by customer dissatisfaction and ultimately to increased overall quality costs.
Every software development group tests its products, yet delivered software always has defects. Test engineers strive to catch them before the product is released but they always creep in and they often re materialize, even with the best manual testing processes. Test Automation software is the best way to increase the effectiveness, efficiency and coverage of your software testing.
- Test automation can improve the development process of a software product in many cases.
- Automated software testing is a process in which software tools execute pre-scripted tests on a software application before it is released into production.
- The objective of automated testing is to simplify as much of the testing effort as possible with a minimum set of scripts.
- The method or process being used to implement automation is called a test automation framework.
- Automation is only implemented when it has been determined that the manual testing program is not meeting expectations and it is not possible to bring in more human testers.
Test Automation is essentially using code to create programs that perform automated tests for your software. The way this is different from manual testing is, instead of actually performing the test; one creates an automated testing scenario and supervises it. Test automation is extensively used for reversion testing, which seeks out new bugs in a program and separates them. Regression tests are generally extremely tedious and time consuming.
Advantages of Automation Testing:
Progression and Reusability
One of the best aspects of test automation is that the testing software is reusable. Not only that, but with every new test and every new bug discovery, the testing software directory can be upgraded and kept up-to-date. Thus, even though one of the main criticisms against test automation is the expense, one has to realize that automation software is a long lasting, reusable product which can justify its cost
Reliability
Test automation provides a consistent platform for your testing needs. The tests for which automation is usually organized are extremely boring. Automation drastically reduces the margin of error in the testing scenario.
Increase of test coverage
Sufficient test coverage of software projects is often achieved only with great effort. Frequent repetition of the same or similar test cases is laborious and time consuming to perform manually like
- Regression test after debugging or further development of software
- Testing of software on different platforms or with different configurations
- Data-driven testing (creation of tests using the same actions but with many different inputs)
- Test automation allows performing different types of testing efficiently and effectively.
Optimization of speed, efficiency
Automated tests run fast and frequently, due to reused modules within different tests. Automated regression tests which ensure the continuous system stability and functionality after changes to the software were made lead to shorter development cycles combined with better quality software and thus the benefits of automated testing quickly out gain the initial costs.
Unique Programmability and Shelf Life
Test Automation serves as a prime component for future testing scenarios. In-house automated software developed by testing firms is modeled such that they have enough flexibility to handle a unique product, while complying with the latest security and testing protocols. This makes test automation a powerful tool for time-saving, resourceful and top notch results.
Consumer Atmosphere Replication
GUI testing is one of the most time consuming and redundant procedures because the tester has to deploy the same procedures in mock user driven environments and check for issues in the responsiveness of the GUI. With automated testing this process becomes incredibly easy.
Conclusion
Executing repetitive tasks with automated software testing gives your team time to spend on more challenging and rewarding projects. Team members improve their skill sets and confidence and in turn pass those gains on to their organization. Test automation alleviates testers’ frustrations and allows the test execution without user interaction while guaranteeing repeatability and accuracy. Instead testers can now concentrate on more difficult test scenarios.
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