Advantages and Disadvantages of Automated Testing

Nowadays, everyone is choosing automated testing to achieve various tasks, such as writing better code to make the regression process easier. Unfortunately, some developers who do not perceive the value of automated testing may need to be more informed. This article will examine some of the most common fallacies about automated testing and how they relate. Let's start with the definition of automated testing.

Automated Testing Definition

Automated testing is a way of doing software tests and other sets of repeated activities without human intervention. Furthermore, these tests may be repeated regularly to guarantee that your application consistently works as intended, and this usually happens when the source code is changed.

Many confuse automated testing with automatic (or robotic) testing, which employs automation technologies to conduct tests without human interaction. However, in this post, we will concentrate on the more popular concept of automated testing.

Most of those working in the software business know that manual and automated testing differ significantly. Manual testing necessitates physical time and effort to ensure the software code performs as intended. Additionally, manual testers must document their results, including checking for faults in the database, external services, and log files. If you are experienced with manual testing, you know how tedious and time-consuming this procedure can be.

There is a clear underlying distinction between manual and automated testing. With manual testing, a person is in charge of independently evaluating the software's usability in the same manner as a user would. Through an automation tool, testing may be automated, freeing up time for higher-value jobs like exploratory testing while speeding up time-consuming tests like regression testing. While updating test scripts may need some work overall, you will see an improvement in test coverage and scalability.

Implementing a Test Automation Strategy

Many teams have adopted a pyramid testing technique due to the shift to agile. Three stages of test automation are required by the test automation pyramid method. Unit testing is the foundation and the most prominent portion of our test automation pyramid. Service layer or API testing is the next step. Unit testing is the cornerstone and most significant part of our test automation pyramid. The following phase is API or service layer testing. GUI tests are the most important ones.

Integrated GUI and API testing solutions like Test Complete, which ensure that changes made to the API test cases are automatically reflected at the GUI level, may also make implementing a test automation pyramid easier.

Advantages of Automated Testing

1. Improved precision

One of the primary advantages of automated testing is that it may improve accuracy. Indeed, a human mistake is less likely to harm automated testing.

When tests are automated, they run more often and consistently than when conducted manually. This can be useful when working with a huge codebase or adding new features. Furthermore, automated testing ensures that any problems or faults in the code are recognized and corrected as soon as feasible.

2. Quicker execution

Automated testing can also result in quicker test execution, and this is because the tests will be executed simultaneously rather than sequentially. Concurrent testing allows for more tests to be run in less time.

3. Cost-cutting measures

Automated testing can also contribute to cost savings. The requirement for manual testers is decreased when tests are automated. Furthermore, the time required to run tests drops, saving time and money.

Furthermore, by finding and correcting problems early in the development process, automated testing can help minimize the cost of software development. They can also help you save money on application support since automated tests take less time to detect and repair errors.

4. More dependable outcomes

Another advantage of automated testing is that it might produce more consistent findings, and this is because tests are being run more often and automatically. Automated software testing allows you to immediately uncover any faults or regressions in your program, allowing you and your team to fix these issues as they emerge.

5. Improved efficiency

Automated testing can help increase developer productivity by automating tasks that would otherwise need to be completed manually.

Every time a new feature or update is added to your application, you may configure your continuous integration (CI) system to execute and track the outcomes of your automated tests.

6. Developers' increased cooperation

Automated testing can aid in improving developer cooperation, assuring a high degree of code coverage and decreasing the possibility of problems in freshly introduced code. When you have a suite of automated tests, other developers on your team may depend on them when making modifications or adding new features.

7. Increased scalability

Automated tests may be run on various devices and setups, allowing you to test more things simultaneously.

Automated tests, for example, can be built to assess the performance of your application on various devices or browsers. This helps you to quickly test the many versions of your application and confirm that they are functioning as intended across multiple platforms.

Disadvantages of Automated Testing

1. Complexity

Automated tests can take longer to produce than manual tests, particularly if poorly planned, and they might also be more difficult to integrate into your development workflow. If your tests are complex or difficult to manage, your test suite's quality may suffer, which might negatively impact achieving continuous testing over the application's lifetime. That is why we created a scripting language similar to normal for our automated testing tool.

2. High start-up expenses

One of the biggest disadvantages of automated testing is that it requires a lot of time and money to install. However, this investment can often be recouped quickly in terms of improved developer productivity and more reliable results.

3. It must be redone for each new environment

Your automated tests must be updated whenever there is a change in one environment for the results to be reliable. Unfortunately, to ensure that your automated test scripts are functional in your local development environment, CI system, and production settings, you will need to rewrite them in several different places.

4. Produces false positives and false negatives

Even when there is no genuine problem, automated tests can fail. This might occur if the test contains an error or is not wide enough to cover all its intended use cases. Similarly, your tests may provide false negatives if they are only intended to verify that something exists rather than that it functions as anticipated.

5. Testing that is both dependable and maintainable is difficult to develop

It is not easy to create a thorough suite of automated tests, and they must be trustworthy enough to be performed repeatedly and regularly without producing false positives or negatives. Conversely, your test scripts must be adaptable sufficiently to consider your application's modifications. This requires precise design and implementation and a high level of developer understanding.

6. Cannot be applied to GUI components (e.g., graphics, sound files)

While automated tests may be used to verify most of your application's functionality, they are unsuitable for testing graphics or sound files. This is because computerized examinations often require textual descriptions to validate the result.

Factors Determining Automated Testing is Needed or Not

There are several factors to consider when deciding if automated testing is suitable for your project:

1. Application's Complexity

Because manually testing increasingly sophisticated apps might be difficult, they are better suited to automated testing. Additionally, the team must know the requirements for building automated tests, as their involvement is required during development.

2. The Size of the Group

Maintaining a thorough suite of automated tests is more difficult for larger projects with several developers. Because each developer approaches development differently, numerous automated tests may fail without resolving a single issue.

3. Test-driven Development is Encouraged

Automated testing is a great option if you're working on a brand-new project with a group that recognizes the advantages of test-driven development. Using test-driven development, programmers create tests and then write code to pass the tests. Automated testing can, unfortunately, be very challenging to complete if you're working with a team that doesn't understand or support test-driven development.

4. The Significance of Ongoing Integration

Assume your project is heavily reliant on regular integrations and deployments. In this scenario, automated testing is great since it allows you to update your test suite without having a developer go through and re-run your tests.

5. The importance of automated regression testing

Automated regression testing is required when working on large projects with several developers. Suppose your team does not know how to implement such tests. In that case, you may discover that when they make modifications to your application, they cause new issues.

6. Your automation tool and maintenance budget

Implementing testing frameworks and automated tests can be costly, especially if you don't have a staff that knows how they function. Don't forget to factor in maintenance costs because tests will need to be updated as your program evolves.

How to Select Correct Test Cases For Automation Testing?

You may begin building automated tests for your project after assessing the complexity of your application and testing environment. This usually entails:

1. Identify your application's critical components that require testing (i.e., components, processes).
2. Choosing an appropriate framework for developing automated tests
3. Producing the code necessary to make your tests succeed.
4. Executing your automated tests and making sure everything goes as planned.
5. Getting input from the other members of your team.

What Automated Testing Technology Should You Use?

If you are unfamiliar with automated testing, it is the ideal solution for automating your website or online application. You may choose an industry expert to design tests that can replicate real user behaviour using a simple scripting language. Flexibility or performance are not sacrificed for this ease of usage. To achieve the tests you envision in your brain without letting it burst, you may write tests that run remarkably rapidly and have access to a wide range of tools and parameters.

Guidelines for Making Automated Testing Effective

When building automated tests, there are various things you can do to make them simpler to create and manage. It starts with having an automated workflow, such as continuous integration, before you start writing the tests. Your testing and development cycle will be sped up as a result, and you'll be able to check that new modifications don't affect current functionality rapidly.

Before designing more complicated tests, start with a "happy path" test to ensure the most fundamental functionality functions as intended.

Create modular tests that may be used in many circumstances. Having to write the test only once and then update it as needed will save you time.

Utilize exploratory testing or usability testing to ensure your application is simple and intuitive; keep in mind that automated testing isn't a replacement for human contact.

Final Thoughts

You may use automated testing to ensure that your website or web application is completely functioning and user-friendly. A computerized procedure should be as simple as possible for developers and testers.

The primary benefit of automated testing is that it allows you to check if your application is functioning as intended regularly. Automated testing saves you time because you don't have to test the same feature repeatedly manually. The primary drawbacks of automated testing are that they often require more expensive software and a lot of work to set up and maintain.