While there is no doubt that human testing will always be necessary, the need for automation testing is growing. It provides several advantages for businesses and teams, including time efficiency and comprehensive coverage. So how should an automated testing method be developed? In this post, we will demonstrate recommended practices for maximizing your experiences at each level of your test automation plan.

1. Develop a test automation strategy

Every great endeavour begins with a solid plan. Testing automation is not an exception. Put your AUT and testing teams under a microscope and analyze them in comparison to establish a robust test automation approach. This is the stage when team need to assess the priorities and check the automation extent. They should identify available resources and potential hazards. The team may define a plan of action with a particular timetable and figure out responsibility for each step after the evaluation.

•  Recommendation:

Schedule automated testing as early as feasible. Automation involves machine and software acquisition, which may become a bottleneck due to time and resource allocation requirements. Consequently, planning and preventing the complexities of cost and time overruns is prudent.

2. Choose a test automation strategy

Choosing an appropriate automation strategy is fundamental to developing strong and maintainable test cases. Teams may choose from five automation frameworks: modular, linear, library architecture, data-driven, and hybrid.

• Recommendation:

Do a risk assessment of the project. The recommended criteria include explanations of prospective dangers, their affectability, likelihood, mitigating measures, and associated costs.

3. Get a testing instrument

Once test cases are automated, it is clear why test automation requires automation testing tools. There are already hundreds of testing tools available on the market, giving testing teams several alternatives. Here, teams should design an automation tool strategy by asking specific questions about available resources and necessary specifications. Remember that the tool should solve your issue, not the other way around.

• Recommendation:

Do not hurry to use the “greatest” testing automation technology in business. Instead, choose the test automation framework you need to set up, and then choose a few applications that contain the application’s core features.

4. Set up an automated environment

This phase is an essential component of an automation strategy since planning begins to be implemented here. In this stage, you evaluate your testing environment and get the necessary automation tools for your automation test. Test automation requires a consistent testing environment despite the unpredictability of testing development.

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The development and test environment should be similar to the stage environment, whereas the stage environment should be identical to the production environment.

Consider data as part of your test case, including where to sort data, if data should be disguised, and what happens to data after testing.

5. Design test automation

It is time to develop your test scripts after you have your plan, tool, and environment. This test build should be concurrent with software development to maintain app evolution. Remember, while developing test cases, to follow the correct sequence of testing modules and to cover both the positive flow – when the flow is normal – and the negative flow – which covers any unauthentic attempts to access the program or erroneous data flowing through the application.

• Recommendation:

If feasible, use Behavior-Driven Development. This methodology efficiently aligns testers and stakeholders via user stories while composing testing requirements and scripts.

Data-driven testing promotes test reusability. With a data-driven strategy, test cases may be generated by modifying the data contained in external files.

6. test automation

This is when your preparations and efforts bear fruit. While this stage is automated, you are only responsible for the AUT and the power supply. You may also follow DevOps and CI/CD pipelines to boost the pace of your release while preserving its quality. Note that various testing environments need the previous configuration, such as local, offline, CI/CD, etc. Mock servers are the solution to such error-reporting components.

• Recommendation:

Save time by parallelizing automated test cases with no interdependencies. For instance, the outcome of a test case for a payment page should not wait on or rely on the case for logging in.

7. Outcome, Evaluation, and Reusability

At this last phase, you should have the plan to examine failed test cases and the subsequent steps to repair the observed issue. The time required to notify testers and resolve the problem is often longer than planned. Thus, a well-defined method will save teams several disagreements and resources throughout the application’s refinement.

• Recommendation:

Determine sluggish and failed tests. Set a timer to your test run to identify tests that repeatedly fail or take too long. This technique enables you to discover the bottleneck and modify the activities of these tests, optimizing your testing efficiency.

Conclusion

Each program, regardless of complexity, will likely have its unique testing needs, and no two development teams are identical. Whether you have already decided to migrate to automated testing or are still contemplating it, it is crucial to understand the best practices and methods for making the change.

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Also read: How much does software testing cost