Test Automation Best Practices You Can Adopt Right Now
As software development is rapidly evolving, ensuring the functionality and reliability of the apps is becoming critical. Adopting the test automation best practices can importantly improve the effectiveness of the testing processes.
One important aspect to focus on is API testing with Postman, a strong tool that simplifies the building, execution, and management of API tests. Using Postman in the test automation technique, you can manage your testing workflows, easily identify and resolve issues, and deliver high-quality software products.
In this article, we will explore the key test automation best practices to adopt right now to improve your testing capabilities and achieve good outcomes.
Let’s dive in!
8 Test Automation Best Practices
Here are some of the best test automation practices to include in identifying the accurate tests to automate by using the accurate framework and tools, and keeping records for testing.
Pick the tests that you want to automate
It’s impossible to automate each test as some of them can only be conducted by manual judgment. So, each test automation plan should begin with selecting the tests that need automation. Here are the tests that might require automation:
Tests in which human errors can be made
Tests that need repetitive action with a huge amount of information
Situations where multiple data sets are used
Tests extended across different builds
Tests that must run on multiple hardware, platforms, or OSs
Tests that focus on often-used features
Choose the right testing platform
Choose the testing platform that needs you to build maintainable and reusable automation test flows. Choose for the platforms that can:
Integrates well with the C/CD pipeline, and ensures that automation efforts complement current development practices
Reduce the maintenance cost. Real no-code solutions accommodate team members with different technical skills and minimize developer dependency
Support the development of reusable, parameterized test flows that adapt to updates without requiring more rewrites
Build UI changes resistant tests
While performing testing automation, one of the essential things you can do is to build tests that are resistant to UI changes. This is important during the early development stages when the software’s UI is liable to update frequently.
One way to build tests that are UI change-resistant is by doing reverse engineering. In general, these programs recognize the objects depending on their location.
However, if controls have unique and permanent names, it becomes easier for automated testing platforms to run tests easily without having to change names every time.
So, it’s an important best practice for the test automation process that saves your time and other resources.
The testing environment and AUT (App Under Test) should be stable
The app/environment should be kept stable so that automation scripts will provide constant results.
Stable environment- If the environment is unstable, the final result will vary from the expected result on every automated test run. So, it turns out to be tiresome to verify the accuracy of the test followed by debugging it.
Stable AUT- If the AUT keeps on changing, the QA team will rework automation scripts in each release. It diminishes the purpose of automated testing. So, make sure that the app is stable before adopting automated testing.
Keep a record of tests to analyze them
Tests may fail, and it is necessary to look for how to fix the problem. To debug negative test cases, it’s necessary to have logs, screenshots, exception reporting, and video recordings of tests being executed. You should know the results of the tests to know your app’s status.
The test report is an essential component of test analysis. So, after introducing updates in the codebase, you can run automated tests to make reports.
A test will guide you through its attributes like execution time, outcomes, and environment-specific parameters to enhance test coverage. Once you analyze the test report, you can look for flaky and slow-running tests that cause bottlenecks. Ultimately, you can solve them and make the test automation process seamless.
Test on real devices
It is essential to test websites on real devices & browsers. Make sure that device fragmentation is a major concern for each developer and tester. With every website, you have to work seamlessly on different device-browser-OS combinations. With more than 9k distinct devices used to access the internet globally, each website has to be optimized for multiple configurations, screen resolutions, and viewports.
No simulator or emulator should be used to replicate the real users. Websites should be tested on real devices to make them work in real-time situations such as incoming calls, low battery, weak networks, and many more. If the in-house lab isn’t accessible, you can choose a cloud-based testing alternative that provides real devices.
Don’t hurry to release your project without testing it on real devices. When real users use your website, they will encounter errors that are easy to avoid, and the disruptive UI/UX will result in a loss of users.
Create independent & self-contained test case
While working with test automation, testers build and schedule automated test cases. This approach will work against the advantages that test automation provides like reusability, flexibility, and agility.
By designing independent test cases, it becomes easier to simplify maintenance and troubleshooting. You have to use the logic that the test case contains even in other test cases and minimize the time needed to build a new test case.
Start with early and frequent testing
Start with testing early in the development procedure and keep testing frequently. It helps identify issues before they get expensive to fix, while continuous testing makes pace with CI/CD practices.
You may accelerate your test execution phases as long as you have a strong automation approach and tool. You can set up parallel testing to test more broadly and expedite the testing process if your test cases are enormous.
The ultimate objective is to attain continuous testing, so you can promptly take corrective action if a critical test fails and you always know the most recent quality status on all builds.
Final Verdict
If you want to provide high-quality apps rapidly, test automation is crucial. Increased accuracy, more comprehensive test coverage, and quicker test execution are the outcomes. However, there are a few best practices you should follow to ensure that test automation is being implemented appropriately. These include deciding which test cases to automate, utilizing high-quality test data, selecting the right testing framework, and retaining test records for analysis.