7 Reasons to Learn QA Test Automation Tools in 2020

Are you bored with manual testing? Learn Test automation tools that allow the QA team to execute more test cases in less time with increasing test coverage and eliminates human testers’ effort. Do you want to know more about test automation! Here we give detail information about test automation, its importance, and applications.

What is QA Automation Testing?

QA Automation testing is a method of software testing that uses tools and scripts to implement the entire software development lifecycle in a short time with an efficient software application to the end-user.

In simple words, Automation Testing means executing the test cases suite using automation tools. The automation software tool takes data into System Under Test, compares expected and actual results and generates test reports. It helps in building better quality software applications with less effort.

Why QA Automation Testing?

Many mobile application developers transforming from the traditional method - manual testing to a modern approach - automated testing for managing mobile application quality. Imminent change into automation testing is because they realized how costly and time-consuming it is to do manual tests.

Overall using automation testing tools will be the best way to get an optimal level of test effectiveness, efficiency, and testing coverage. The ultimate uses of test automation come from avoiding repeatable test runs manually and reduces developers’ time for new features and do a faster implementation of the application.

What are the benefits of Automation Testing?

Automation testing helps the QA team to automate the repeated routine tasks and execute the test suites multiple times which makes more effort and time with human testing. Most firms have already realized the benefits of automated software testing and also implementing widely in the application development cycle. Let us see the benefits of automated testing in detail.

Test Automation Reduces Time and Cost:
After each development of software application, the QA team has to test the product for its best quality. The test has to be done repeatedly if any changes are made in the source code. For example, if new software releases then tester needs to test the software for its compatibility with all operating systems and hardware configurations.

In this case, testing the same test cases with manual testing will be more time and cost consuming. But when we opt for Automation testing, the only initial cost is to be invested then it runs repeatedly at no extra cost. Compared to manual testing, automation testing helps in repeated execution of the same test cases and faster executions. Software testing with automation tools surely reduces time when repetition occurs, as manual testing takes several days to finish.

Test Automation Improves Accuracy and Reliability:
In the case of manual testing, several numbers of prerequisites are involved in running each test suite. And also each test suite requires a different execution sequence. As manual tester applies different test methodologies there will be a possibility of getting mistakes. When we opt for automation testing the similar test cases will be repeatedly executed in a sequence with high precision in less time. Even if any source code changes it maintains the accuracy of the software. Re-executing the same test cases on different servers to know the performance as expected, it will be achieved at high speed with automation testing only. 

Automation testing Increase Test Coverage:
Automated testing more specializes in the depth and scope of tests which improves the standard of software. Automated software testing process works on thousands of various complex test cases which isn't possible with manual testing.

If the software application is huge and complicated, manual testers are scared to check this type of software but testers who do automation testing can easily work thereon this software, as test automation tools facilitate testers to check the software on multiple computers with different configurations. This testing process is capable of examining the software application’s inner database, data table, memory, and a file containing the app to see the application software is performing as estimated.

Test Automation Reduces Efforts:
Successive development cycles will require the execution of the same test cases repeatedly. Using test automation tools, it will be easier to record the test suite and allows the replay feature in further requirement cases. If the test suite is automated once, no human intervention is required then. The main aim of automation is to reduce the number of test suites to be run manually and eliminates manual testing efforts altogether.

Load Testing:
Load testing ensures the built software application can handle expected and unexpected user loads. If an organization working with manual testing methods, load testing is probably pushed off until the end of a development cycle. Continuous integration and agile methodologies make load testing early and often, many companies continue to perform load testing tools late and that results in delayed software releases.

With automated test tools a tester can run thousands of tests simultaneously, simulating millions of users, all these not possible with manual testing methods. Realistic load tests surely include parameterized settings that are configurable using randomized variables and also represent what happens in the real world.

Increases Confidence:
Agile methodology recommends continuous iteration of testing and development throughout the development lifecycle of the software application. This leads to organizing the testing efforts with greater efficiency. Without proper testing the risk of delivering a fully functional system without breaking earlier working features is high.

This method of testing by the manual testing approach is expensive and inefficient. In this type of application development, automation has its highest priority. Automating the test cases and being able to repeat it quickly in each sprint gives confidence that all things are working as expected. In the case of automation testing, testers can use different software testing tools which makes them work fast with increasing efficiency.

To Test Complex Web Application:
The automation software testing method is very much helpful for those web applications where millions of users interact together. But in the case of a manual testing process, creating that many users manually and simultaneously is difficult and impossible. In order to test those complex web applications better to opt for automation testing as that creates virtual users to check the load capacity of the built web application. Automation testing can also be used on the software where GUI will be the same always and functionalities get changed always due to source code changes.

Scope of QA Automation Testing:

Automation has gained popularity over the years and will gain more popularity in the near future also. As the IT world commanded by technologies like IoT, AI, and Machine Learning, testing will continue to grow at its core. Most of the organizations are realized the importance of testing as they are adapting to new trending technologies. As a result, such evolutions are opening more doors for software testers in the IT domain. The future of the emerging software testing domain is immense and opportunities are simply growing for testers with great pay. And all these possibilities are interesting as the testing domain future holds a lot because software testing is becoming a more challenging and in-demand field.

• Average salaries of test automation engineer in the US is $79,609 per year as per Glassdoor.
• Average salaries of test automation engineer in India is 516k per year as per Glassdoor.

Automation testing tools:

There are many automation testing tools available in the market. Selecting the right automation tool is the biggest challenge for the project. Most of the tools in the market are open source tools that reduce cost issues. Here is a list of best automation tools that are widely chosen by the experts.

What is Selenium?

Selenium is a widely used open-source automation tool for testing web-based applications. Selenium is a compact framework that allows a playback feature for recording functional tests without the need to learn a test scripting language. It provides the provision to export recorded script in languages like C#, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Groovy, Ruby and Scala which makes it easier for the tester to use. The tests can then run on Firefox and most modern web browsers also. Selenium runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems.

Selenium suite consists of four major components with a different approach for automation testing, such as Selenium IDE, Selenium Remote Control, Web Driver, and Selenium Grid in aiding the development of the web application. Selenium is very easy to use and install. No programming experience is required to use Selenium, but having knowledge of HTML and DOM is an added advantage. It has built-in help, test results reporting module and support user extensions.

Why Selenium?

Selenium automation testing has become very popular among testers because it offers various advantages. Selenium is now becoming a favorite tool for many automation testers as it made the life of automation testers easier. Selenium software testing tool is mostly used in regression Testing. It has many advantages over other testing tools because of its wide features that are given below in detail.

Open Source Tool: Since Selenium is an open-source tool, it doesn’t require any licensing costs which give it an added advantage over other automation testing tools.

Tool for many Requirements: Selenium has a suite of tools, so it suits every need of the users. You can use various tools like WebDriver, Grid, and IDEto fulfilling your different requirements.

Multi-languages Support: language support is a major challenge to a tester or developer with an automation testing tool. Selenium supports major languages like C#, Python, JavaScript, Java, Ruby, Perl, .Net, and PHP. It provides the provision to export recorded script in these languages which makes easier for testers usage.

Browser Support: Selenium supports the flexibility to use on different browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Edge, and Safari.

Operating Systems Support: Selenium supports the flexibility to work with different operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.

Community support: Selenium has an active open community feature that helps to resolve your queries and issues related to it. This makes it the best choice as your automation testing tool.

Supports Frameworks and Extensions: Selenium can be used with other frameworks like JUnit and TestNG. Selenium also supports huge user-extensions in .js file format.

Micro Focus UFT (QTP):

Micro Focus Unified Functional Testing is formerly known as QuickTest Professional, which is a proprietary test automation tool, that automates functional and regression testing for software environments and applications. Micro Focus UFT can test both web and desktop applications.  It has a built-in object repository, built-in global and local data tables and the test reports are generated automatically.

Even though QTP has more advanced capabilities, Selenium tool overrides QTP in three features:

• Cost - because Selenium is an open-source tool
• Flexibility - because it can support a number of browsers, and  programming languages
• Parallel testing - something that QTP is capable of but only with the use of Quality Center

Conclusion:

Test automation allows the QA testing team to execute more test suites in less time, increasing test coverage and freeing human tester efforts. QA automation testing ensures the best quality of the application and gives confidence to developers, management and customers alike.

In the fast-moving world, automation testing plays an important role to achieve most of the testing goals with effective use of resources and time. The perfect combination of skilled experts and the right automation tool according to the application requirement definitely yield good ROI and efficient quality products. An open-source tool like Selenium is a good option to start automation testing.

Selenium is the most preferable and demanding tool by top MNC companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Infosys, Cognizant, etc. and they are hiring automation engineers with sound knowledge of selenium. Due to the many benefits of selenium, testers can make their career in this field. Expand your testing capacity with faster feedback, and improve quality through the Selenium test automation tool suite.