5 Reasons To Choose Automation Testing

Automation testing has been around for 20 years. But until recently, there was a very high barrier of entry. However, new agile automation testing frameworks make a big difference. Here, we look at the top 5 reasons to choose automation testing.

Introduction

Automation testing is the process of using computer tools to perform some or all of your software testing. This is what allows companies such as Google to release new features so fast. As many of you know, testing happens at every phase in the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

As a developer, you are used to the concept of unit testing. A unit test verifies that a specific function is working correctly. Typically, these are automated and run by the CI system. Moving up the list, component testing happens once several functions are joined into a component. As a rule, this uses “fake” inputs and checks that the outputs are as expected. Both these are typically the remit of the development team. Once you have a complete system, testing usually becomes the prerogative of the QA team. At this stage, the entire system is getting tested for performance, reliability, and ability to deliver on the requirements.

Five reasons to adopt automated systems testing

Systems testing is one of the most complex aspects of the SDLC. Get it right and you deliver reliable software that works as expected. Get it wrong and your users have a terrible experience that drives them away. So, here are the top 5 reasons to automate the testing of your system.

Reason 1: It speeds up delivery

The most important driver for test automation is that it speeds up software delivery. Modern applications are large, complex, and usually feature-rich. That makes them slow and cumbersome to test manually. If you choose the right automation testing approach, you can run your tests constantly and deliver faster.

Reason 2: It is more reliable than humans

Manual testing sounds easy but is hard to get right. You need to focus on a detailed task and repeat it time and again without losing focus or making any mistakes. Of course, this is exactly the sort of task where a computer excels. Where a person might get bored and make mistakes, the computer carries on delivering reliable testing.

Reason 3: It allows tests to be integrated with CI/CD

Developers are used to CI systems that only accept PRs if code coverage is increasing and if all unit tests pass. So, it might be a surprise to realise just how manual the CD process can be. Basically, if you rely on manual testing, you are also relying on manual updating of the QA status of the product. By contrast, agile test automation platforms can do this automatically.

Reason 4: It makes shift left much easier

Shift left means testing as often and as early as possible. That doesn’t just mean testing the units and components. It means testing the whole system at the earliest possible opportunity. With a good test automation tool, you can set it up to run a smoke test of the whole application each time the CI system pulls in a new feature. That way, you are testing as you go, not waiting for a single big round of testing at the end.

Reason 5: It empowers new approaches

The final reason for choosing a good agile automation testing framework is that it enables you to explore completely new approaches to testing. These include shift right testing, where you run your systems tests against your production system to verify it is functioning as needed. If you choose an AI-powered tool, you can also use computer vision to verify that the whole UI is correct. 

Challenges with test automation

Having read the above, you might assume that everyone embraces test automation. Sadly, until recently there were major roadblocks for automating systems testing. There are a whole host of reasons why, but here are the two most significant.

Hard to create tests

Automation testing relies on complex test scripts. These interface with your UI via a web driver. The script sets out exactly what UI element to select and what to do with it. The result is checked against the expected output to see if the test passed or failed. Effectively, each test is its own software development project. You even reach the point where you are testing and debugging your test scripts! The upshot is, only quite skilled test engineers can create new tests.

Difficult to maintain

So, you created your tests and now you can sit back and just let them run, right? Wrong! Thanks to how most test frameworks select elements, test scripts have a habit of going wrong. Indeed, they often break every time the UI or application logic gets updated. The upshot is, you have to maintain your tests any time your application is updated. That ends up taking the majority of the QA team’s time.

Turning to AI

The solution is to use an AI-powered agile testing automation framework, such as Functionize. Platforms like this use machine learning and other types of AI to simplify the process of test creation. The resulting tests are smart enough that they don’t break when the UI or application changes. And in future, AI will usher in the era of autonomous testing. At that stage, the platform decides what to test, creates the tests, runs them, and analyzes the output, all without direct human intervention.

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