With regards to Quality Assurance, there are two alternatives to look over: manual testing and automated testing. Both the options includes the testing of an actual product and a product that should have been created. Software testing is a process aimed at setting the reality i.e., what we have -against the expectations, i.e., what we should have. The difference between both the testing is that – Manual testing needs an individual who physically checks whether everything works properly or not. Whereas the automated testing may be carried out without human intervention. First of all, look at some basics of software testing.
Three layers of software testing-
- Component testing- As the name implies, these tests verify the functionality within a specific component in isolation (i.e. one section of a code). They do not manage the interaction of such component with other components in a system.
- Integration testing- Integration testing verifies several dependent components. Basically, they check how the functions of a component perform when such component is integrated into a system.
- Regression testing- These tests verify the whole system. The goal is to ensure that newly added functions did not affect the existing functionality.
Need of automation testing?
Every software development group tests its products, yet delivered software always has defects. Test engineers strive to get them before the product is released but they generally creep in and they frequently return, even with the best manual testing processes. Test Automation software is the ideal way to increase the effectiveness, efficiency and coverage of your software testing. Manual software testing is carried out by a human sitting in front of a computer carefully going through application screens, attempting different usage and input combinations, also comparing the results to the expected behavior and recording their observations. Manual tests are repeated multiple times during development cycles for a change in source code and other circumstances like multiple operating environments and hardware configurations.
An automated testing tool is able to playback pre-recorded and predefined actions, compare the outcomes to the expected behavior and report the achievement or disappointment of these manual tests to a test engineer. When automated tests are created they can easily be repeated and they can be extended to perform tasks inconceivable with manual testing. Because of this, managers have found that automated software testing is an essential part of successful product development.
What is Automation Testing?
Automation Testing means execute test cases with the use of automation tool. Automation software is able to enter data into the system for test. It also compare expected and actual results and generate detailed test reports. Test automation requests for some investment of money and resources. Successive development cycles will require execution of same test suite repeatedly. Using a test automation tool,it’s conceivable to record this test suite and re-play it as required. When the test suite is automated, no human intercession is required. This helps to improve the ROI of Test Automation. The aim of Automation is to reduce the number of test cases to be run manually and not to eliminate Manual Testing altogether. Automated software testing has long been considered critical for big software development organizations but is often thought to be too expensive or difficult for smaller companies to implement.
Benefits of using Automated testing-
1. Saves Time-
Software tests have to be repeated multiple times during development cycles to ensure quality. Every time source code is modified so the software tests need to be repeated. For each release of the software it may be tested on all supported operating systems and hardware configurations. Repeating these tests by manually is costly and time consuming. Once created, automated tests can be run over and over again at no additional cost and they are much faster than manual tests. Automated software testing reduces the time to run repetitive tests. And a time savings results directly into cost savings.
2. Increase your test coverage-
Automated software testing can increase the depth and extent of tests to help improve software quality. Generally lengthy tests remain unattended during manual testing. They can even be kept running on various PCs with various configurations. Automated software testing can look inside an application and see memory contents, data tables, file contents, and internal program states to verify whether the product is behaving as expected. Test automation can easily execute different complex test cases during every test run providing coverage that is impossible with manual tests.
3. Find more bugs-
Automated tests generally check for any regression in the system after new code has been executed.
There is always more chance of finding bugs in new features than in existing functionality.
4. Improve Quality-
Although automated tests are capable of giving us quick feedback and alert us about the health of an application, so that we can return any code change that has broken the system, automated testing individually does not improve quality. Just because we have a modern test automation, it does not guarantee that no bugs will emerge into production. We can improve quality by ensuring correct practices are followed from start to finish of a development cycle. Quality is not an afterthought; it should be prepared in the right way from the start. It isn’t sufficient to depend on automated tests to get a picture of the quality of the product.
5. Automation does what manual testing can not-
Even the largest software and QA departments cannot perform a controlled web application test with thousands of users. Automated testing can simulate tens, hundreds or thousands of virtual users interacting with a network, software and web applications.
6. Helps developers and testers-
Shared automated tests can be used by developers to detect problems rapidly before sending to QA. Whenever source code changes, tests are run automatically and are checked in and notify the team if they fail. Such features save developers time.
Conclusion-
Automated software testing is more beneficial for complex development: the longer a project lasts, the bigger gain automated tests can bring in the end. Automated tests cannot solve all problems that may occur during the development process. But if executed properly, they make the work much more efficient and, so, more cost – effective.
Are you looking to develop a web solution for your business? We at Solace believe in the benefits and effectiveness of using automated testing for web development. Our expert’s team will be there to develop effective web app that will give success to your business that it deserves. Contact us for web development that will help to boost your business.
