Suppose your team is about to release a new feature and that particular feature will be the highlight of the application (it can be a mobile application or a web application or some other software). And this new feature will decide the success of the application. You have tested that new feature but there are other features in the application which are already being used by the users and if one of those features has a bug then it can ruin the entire experience for your user and can also ruin the reputation of your product. So it is very important to perform all the necessary testing carefully to prevent failure before making the application live to the people.
If a web application fails, the main reason for such failure is poor testing during the developmental process. Quality assurance testing means a set of planned actions to improve the developmental process of the application and introduce standard quality for preventing errors and bugs in the application. So to avoid poor quality applications, executing a strict quality assurance test is a must before making the application live.
Web testing allows detecting all the primary issues related to the web, including difficulty in navigating, handling load, integration problems, and uncovering bugs and solving application’s source code issues at an early stage to provide applications serviceability, compatibility, execution, and safety according to the need. The purpose of web testing is to provide the user with a web app that is flexible and can effectively interact and exchange information.
If you want to improve the quality of your web application then automation testing is of worth in taking this decision. Performing web automation testing allows parallel execution, saves a lot of time, reduces human effort and errors, improves test efficiency and testing potentiality.
After knowing how important it is to do web automation testing and to make the application sustainable and successful it’s time to provide you with some amazing tips to improve your web automation testing.
Table of Contents
1. Decide What to Automate
The first step is to know the need for automation otherwise the needed output of test automation will be difficult to achieve. It is also to be kept in mind that certain things may work in a certain environment and may not work in certain due to various factors like hardware dependencies, the difference of environment, and its potential significance. It can be started with the following points-
Complicated test calculation, a task that is repetitive and manually difficult to perform, bugs/error-prone tasks, and lastly the features that are going to be stable in most of the applications lifecycle.
2. Frequent and early testing
Considering testing activities from the very beginning of the developmental process helps in detecting and fixing bugs at an early stage and also in the target’s quality. As it is known that prevention is better than fixing it at a later stage. Delaying the testing procedure also leads to slower progress.
Testing early also means that the testers get engaged in communicating with customers to evaluate and analyze the requirements. Testing frequently means performing smaller tests several times during the developmental stage which helps to create a flow of continuous feedback and reporting hence allowing quick assurance and improvement to the application which leads to lower developmental costs for the application.
3. Documenting and planning the web testing process-
The web automation testing process must begin by establishing a clear plan to take into action and the test process should also be well documented. Documentation is the reference guide for others that includes-
- Test policy.
- Test strategy (like budget limits, target date, risk identification, etc.)
- Test plan like (product and its version, risks, features to be and not to be tested, etc.
- Test principle.
- Testing terms.
- List of tools supporting web application testing.
- Reports of documented issues.
4. Systematizing Testing Tools, Frameworks & Techniques
Most of the problems of testing can be solved by making proper use of standardized tools, frameworks, and testing techniques that fit a particular type of application or test case problems. Test management controls test processes, project communication, and increases team efficiency. Based on your budget and goals you can select the tools among open-source platforms or commercial systems.
5. Utilization of Quality Test Data
For successful web automation, it is important to have quality data tests. This means that to ensure the size of the data is optimal it must have the information and components required for application testing. Also, it is important to note that the data for testing is updated timely to get accurate results. Categories like valid data, invalid data boundary conditions, etc. that are combined and separated into different categories can be considered as quality data tests.
6. Implementing End-user testing
In the planning stage, there may be user personas which are an imaginary character that helps to create applications objectives based on user behavior patterns targets. Testers use a persona to seek a bug. But persona cannot entirely predict user behavior patterns as a whole. Thus end-user testing or user acceptance testing comes into place to make sure that the application meets user needs. Testing your web application by engaging with the end-user helps to discover bugs easily and ensures the application is ready to produce and supplies user feedback during and after the production stage. It can be performed in different ways-
- Alpha and beta testing.
- User documentation testing.
- Regulation acceptance testing.
- End-user testing.
- Specification-based testing.
- Operational acceptance testing.
7. Establishing Code quality measurement in advance
For improved web testing establishing code, quality measurement is best before starting an application. It ensures the creation of measurable, specific, documented, and tractable objectives. Code quality can be measured by test metrics which are Reliability, (number of failures), Performance efficiency (load testing, stress testing), Security (number of error message), Rate of delivery (number of stories), Maintainability (lines of code), Usability (level of satisfaction).
8. Effective bug reports
A precise bug report Makes the web testing more efficient by identifying the problem and hence helps the testers to determine the nature of the bug much quicker and leads towards solving them. Bad bug reports can lead to a serious problem. The effective bug report must have the needed solutions to fix it with the mentioned bug scenarios. The bug report should also be clear enough to understand its failure that includes pieces of information like what the testers see, what was expected to see, and the details about what went wrong along with the screenshots of failures with highlighted defects.
9. Providing a Pleasant working environment for the web testing team
The testing process comprises multiple activities that are performed by different teams or task specialists. To enhance their work, attitude, and productivity towards their job, a good working environment plays a vital role. To create a suitable working environment these tips can be put into consideration to achieve the high level quality goal.
- Set up an environment to strengthen respect and trust for other members.
- Creating confidence for improved connection among the team members.
- If needed, provide business training and build team exercises to improve teamwork and expand their knowledge.
- Creating definite roles for each member as every role comes with its own set of skills, specific duty to perform, and tools to operate with.
- Showing appreciation to the deserved one.
- Choosing the right people to build the team.
Some Challenges that come with web automation testing
Lacking the knowledge to understand how much to automate means trying everything to automate later leads to a painful experience in running and maintaining the automation. Choosing the wrong tool in Web automation and running a larger number of test cases takes a long time to execute reports. It becomes difficult in making changes and redesigning the automation framework while shifting from older HTML CSS to new technologies web applications. The challenge can also be there if proper care is not taken with the problem of inconsistent GUI element ID while designing a web application.
After knowing all the above mentioned tips it is must say that to survive in the agile world it is important to note that for a web application to be successful, super quality is a must to satisfy the needs of the users and this is the reason why everyone is moving to automation testing.
Performing web automation testing on your local infrastructure might not be scalable and require high maintenance costs. Therefore, you can go for cloud-based solutions for your web automation needs. Lambda Test is one of the best test automation platforms for your web testing. It gets you with all your needs to be fulfilled regarding testing. This is a cloud-based platform where you can run both automated and manual testing for your websites and web applications. It provides a combination of more than 3000 Browsers, Devices, and Operating Systems with their respective versions online and with preferred languages like Java, JavaScript, and Python. Etc.,
Lambda Test provides you with a secure, reliable, and scalable Selenium Grid using which Selenium tests can be run by automated scripts at a faster pace. It also provides many more features like live Interactive Testing, Cypress Testing, auto-generated full-page screenshots. Browser Compatibility tests can also be performed here that let you ensure that your websites and web applications are performing at ease on a wide range of the latest browser platforms with their respective versions.
