The Keys to a Successful Test Automation Strategy

Test Automation Strategy: Testing is an important part of the application development process as it creates a link between the production and development teams. This is because, with the help of proper test cycles, the developers can ensure that the application is functioning as intended and forward the app to the production phase. Proper test cases also play a crucial role in reducing the overall development cycle for modern apps. The developers can incorporate various forms of advanced technologies in an application test bench to reduce the testing time. Automation testing is one such technology that helps developers to massively improve the testing experience while working with complex modern apps. There are various factors that developers must keep in mind to improve the success of their automation test cases.

This article will focus on various factors that can ensure guaranteed success in the modern application testbench. We will also understand how the developers can use various automation platforms and tools to improve the efficiency of their testing process. We will begin our discussion by introducing test automation to the new developers.

Creating the Concept of Automation Testing

To understand the role of automation testing and creating testing strategies, the developers must have a basic concept of test automation. For the understanding of developers of all skill levels, we can simply define automation testing as an effort to remove the involvement of human developers in the application test bench. Instead, the system will use a text file consisting of various parameters, inputs, and data sets that will allow it to communicate with the app like a normal user. Based on its interactions, the system will create a detailed report showing the user interactivity, stability, and usability of the application undergoing development. Later, the developers and testers can analyze this report to understand whether the application is ready to be released for open users.

In this case, we’d like to mention that the developers can also make significant changes in this file to make the report customized according to their needs. According to their requirements, the automation testers can also store and reuse the test cases for future app development projects. However, a massive drawback of modern automation testing is that it requires significant investment at the initial stage. This is because the developers will have to spend a lot of money introducing various plugins, tools, and libraries that are important to ensure the stability of the test bench. So, app developers must understand their business and have a definite idea about returns on investment to justify this expense.

Benefits of Using Automation Testing

To understand the role of automation testing in the modern application development lifecycle, the developers must have a different idea about the major benefits of using test automation. This knowledge will also help modern application testers, and developers use the test bench’s full potential. These benefits are as follows:

• Automation testing helps developers to conduct repetitive test cases in the application development lifecycle. So, the developers can use this time to focus on the creative side of the development process. For instance, they can develop new features or tools that they can integrate into the future version of the application.
• Since automation testing does not require human involvement, it can conduct the test cases 24 hours round the clock as there is no fatigue-related delay. Moreover, the automation test cases are also devoid of all the errors that can arise due to human involvement.
• With the help of automation testing, the developers can execute the test cases in a parallel format. The major advantage of parallel testing is that it helps the application developers run multiple test instances on different machines simultaneously. So, we can also say that using parallel testing massively helps improve the test coverage for the application development lifecycle.
• Experts suggest that app developers consider test automation as a long-term investment. With automation testing, the application developers can eliminate the expenses required to maintain a manual test bench. Since automation test cases are reusable, it helps the developers to save a lot of money in all the app development projects.

Keys to a Successful Automation Testing Strategy

An efficient automation testing strategy will not only help the developers to wrap up the test cases in time but also ensure the elimination of critical bugs and errors. With the help of this strategy, the developers can also eliminate any unwanted obstacles in the application development lifecycle. Based on our research and understanding, we have created a list of certain key parameters to help the developers create a successful strategy. They are as follows:

• Before beginning the application testing process, the developers must have a definite testing plan. This plan will consist of all the automation test cases that the developers will execute. It will also consist of a list of all the devices and systems on which the developers will verify the performance of their application. This test plan will also help to create a basic understanding of the application among different teams in the company. So, it is very important to create the test plan with the involvement of the development and testing teams and the company’s business teams.
• App developers need to sort the test cases according to their priorities. This is because all the test cases do not have the same importance in the core execution of the app. So, prioritizing the test cases according to their importance will help the developers to improve the efficiency of the test bench massively. It is also important to run the test cases after every critical change in the core framework of the application. This will help the app developers to understand whether any new element breaks the performance of the existing elements in the app. The app developers can easily conduct this process with the help of automated end-to-end testing.

Some more key factors

• Modern application development test benches need to have access to Agile methodologies. With the help of agile methodologies, application development companies can improve the coordination between various teams of the app company. Agile methodologies also help to create an activity log so that all the teams can have a basic idea about the current status of the app. With this process, the developers can conduct the development and testing process side by side. This means that all the critical bugs and errors will be detected at an early stage and removed from the app so that it does not delay the final iteration of the application.
• Modern app developers must have a basic idea about their target audience base. This idea will consist of critical information regarding their preferences, requirements, and the devices they use. With the help of this information, the application developers can customize the automation test files and ensure that the app performs perfectly on these parameters. In this modern and competitive app development market, none of the companies would want to alienate a huge segment of their users based on device or software incompatibility.
• App developers need to verify the performance of the application on real devices. This is because simulation software cannot show the impact of physical parameters on the app’s behavior. However, real device testing becomes almost impossible due to its hectic and expensive management process. In such cases, the developers can easily conduct the test cases on cloud-based platforms. We will learn more about the influence of cloud platforms in the modern application test in the latter part of this article.

Role of Integrating Tools and Platforms in Automation Test Bench

To eliminate the complexity of an automation test cycle, the developers can use various platforms and tools that are easily available in the present market. With the help of these tools, developers can also introduce additional features that will help them to improve the quality of the app undergoing the development process. We can consider the example of cloud platforms that help companies eliminate their manual device test bench. These test benches are usually used for verifying the performance of modern apps on physical devices. However, with the help of cloud platforms, the developers can achieve similar test results while conducting the test cases over remote servers. These servers also provide access to certain devices unavailable on the market. Remote servers also help app developers to run test cases from anywhere in the world.

To further improve our knowledge of cloud platforms and how they’re influencing modern app development practices, we can move our focus towards LambdaTest as our benchmark:

What is meant by LambdaTest

To introduce LambdaTest to all the new developers, we can define it as a modern cloud-based digital experience testing platform that enables you to run automated cross-browser test cases on web apps. The modern app development market considers automation testing the new standard for ensuring the best end-user experience. This is because, with the help of efficient cross-browser test cases, the developers can guarantee app stability irrespective of the user’s change in the operating system, browser version, or device specifications.

Moreover, LambdaTest has various efficient features like parallel test execution to improve the efficiency of the test cases. While working with this platform, the developers can run the automation test files from various well-known frameworks and test suites like Selenium, Cypress, and Playwright. We would like to mention that LambdaTest can run the Selenium automation test files on 3000+ simultaneous browsers.

LambdaTest is also a great option when the developers are willing to verify the performance of web apps that have local hosts and are used for a company’s internal operations. Lastly, the availability of hundreds of real devices with existing thousands of simulation software helps to uplift the accuracy of the test results.

Conclusion

With this article, we focused on spreading proper awareness regarding the execution of modern automation test cases. App developers need a definite testing strategy to ensure the timely delivery of high-quality apps. Moreover, experts believe that automation testing will continue to dominate the testing process in the coming years.

So, the developers and testers must keep themselves prepared to maintain their company’s position in this competitive industry segment. They can also take proper steps to improve and update their knowledge regarding all the new additions and trends in this market. The app development companies can also focus on conducting awareness campaigns to distribute this knowledge among their teams. Lastly, it is also very useful to integrate efficient tools for healthy testing practices.

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