5 Rules for Successful Test Automation

5 Rules for Successful Test Automation Utilize test automation to take the development endeavour where humans cannot go, and enhance the testing of good testers.

Regardless of the area's history, some CIOs and supervisors anticipate test automation to fully automate all merchandise testing, magically produce 100 percent code coverage and capture all bugs. And of course, a secret belief that they can fire all of the talented people and hire a chimp.

1. Automation reflects a process; it does not replace it Don't confuse test automation with vendor tools. However good they are -- and we really do like to think that Functioned illustrates the greatest possible options! -- Any tool can only assist you to improve a procedure. Or consider carpentry: Power tools aid a carpenter build a house quicker than with hand gear, but she does not simply sit back and watch the tools construct the home by themselves.

Rather, approach test automation as a means to test software for conformance to the QA criteria by which you assess applications as ready to discharge. The tools enable you to submit input, catch output, and compare it against a baseline. To put it differently, test automation tools only automate a procedure you (we hope) have set up.

That is the danger and the chance. Automating a good process demonstrates how good that process is.

2. It is another development endeavour Treat the test-automation project like any other development project. That means putting together specifications on what it will and won't do, how the code/modules are designed, and so on.

The automation needs to be planned, controlled, tracked, and supported just like a real application development endeavour.

3. Automate the right things Automation Testing is a perfect solution in many scenarios, but don't force these tools to the wrong function. Among the positive points: it's a good method to find repeatable evaluations, to expand program coverage, to accelerate tests on subsequent versions of the program, and also to perform regression testing.

Nonetheless, it is automation, perhaps not automatic. Don't expect to automate everything.

Some jobs inherently require manual testing.

The testing part still goes back to the testers. Those professionals are responsible for coming up with appropriate input to exercise the program, working out if the output is both correct and based on spec, and looking for bugs.

4. Get the right people Apparently, many managers assume that since the automation tools do all the work, an intern can run the program. This mind-set becomes specialist testers' shorts tied into a knot.

"Get the perfect staff," one tester insisted. "This type of work requires the perfect sort of knowledge and skills. Testers will need to know how to write code how the application under evaluation is assembled, and the way to do testing" For any nontrivial test-automation project, you require dedicated personnel. Provided that the developers have to split their time between automated and manual testing responsibilities, the test-automation attempt never actually gets up and moving in a really prosperous manner.

5. Layout applications to be analysed Automated or not, QA tests do not arrive out of anywhere.

One example of this design-for-test strategy is for QA staff to place conventions that developers follow. For example, get programmers to always guarantee a unique way of Identifying an item. It may be its associated text, a name, a special ID, etc.. Once you've got this standard set, see if the test tool has options for setting the order in which it chooses an identifier.

Otherwise, you can slow down the testing procedure. "The main problem I confronted was the inconsistency of the different warning or error messages the item was returning to the user," a tester told me. "The same message window was used for a warning or a mistake, but from the automation point of view it was really hard to work out if you must list the run as powerful or as a failure," she added.