How Automation Testing helps prevent Bugs and Save Time

It is being quite a while since the quality assessment engineers have realized the true potential of automation testing. However, very few business owners have realised this value to date. In this modern software development segment, companies can not hesitate to introduce all the advanced technologies in the development framework. The major company owners need to realize the potential of test automation so that they can introduce it in their test network. In this article, we are going to discuss various factors to justify how test automation helps to prevent bugs. Our overall objective is to prove that test automation using Testrigor QA automation tool or similar, helps companies to develop high-quality web applications in a short period.

The Reasons to Introduce Test Automation

We can define manual testing to be a slow process that involves running every test manually one after the other. On the other hand, Automation Testing is a process of writing the test scripts once and using them multiple times to conduct all the redundant testing processes. The system will automatically initiate the testing process every time a developer makes any change to the core application. Finally, the test automation tool will collect all the test results and store them in an easy-to-read format. The primary objective of this process is to allow the developers to quickly conduct the testing processes and fix all the major bugs.

Automation Testing is highly essential for Agile web development as its primary objective is fast delivery of web applications. A recent study suggests that the use of Automation Testing has increased by almost 80%. However, on the flip side, many companies are still having problems initiating test automation even in the basic stages. Another survey by many market experts has revealed that almost 41% of IT companies have admitted that they lack even the basic test automation infrastructure. The main challenge to test automation is developing a proper automated test script. Developers must aim that the script should maximize the return on investment while performing test automation. The proper solution to this problem is the deployment of skilled engineers and the use of careful planning.

Understanding the Tests That Need Automation

Understanding the limitations of test automation is the most important criterion to utilise its full potential. There are various levels at which a developer can implement test automation. Let us have a brief look at these levels:

• GUI Tests

At the top of this pyramid is the graphical user interface testing process. Most companies perform this testing process to ensure that the app interface works perfectly and smoothly. Automating the GUI testing processes bring the least return on investment. This is because creating the test scripts for this testing process will require a lot of man-hours and rigorous maintenance. Automating the graphical user interface testing process will become sensible only after you ensured that all the other components of the web application are working properly. Many experts believe that GUI tests are also responsible for producing the highest false positive and false negative test results. So, a company has to run additional manual exploratory testing to verify the test results.

• API Tests

APIs are typically responsible for representing the middle layer of a web application. They help the companies to take care of the business logic and connect the user interface with the main database of the web application. Many companies are replacing GUI tests with API tests to save money in the testing process. On the other hand, API tests are also easier to maintain and scale compared to other testing processes. A recent survey suggests that the number of automation testers who automate the API testing processes have increased by almost 30% in 2021. One of the major benefits is that the developers can perform API testing much earlier in the development life cycle. They can perform this process even before the user interface of the web application is ready.

• Unit Tests

Unit testing forms the base of the Automation Testing priority pyramid. Developers use this testing process to test the smallest components of a web application. These components are often referred to as units. The industry believes that this testing process is the easiest to create, maintain and conduct. These applications have the highest return on investment. This means that the developers will receive the return every time they compile the final test results. After the successful creation of the Unit testing code, it will automatically scan for any errors. So, the developers can use this process to prevent the bugs from appearing instead of wasting time fixing them. So, unit testing must become the basic structure for any company to introduce test automation. This is because it provides the highest return on investment compared to any other testing process.

The Major Benefits of Test Automation

Now it is time to justify how a company can benefit from test automation. The primary concern for any testing Framework is the prevention of bugs and time management. Let us look at how Automation Testing helps to improve these areas:

• Increase in The Test Coverage

As your product evolves, you will continue to add new features to it. So, with every new update, you must ensure that none of these features adds bugs to the core application. Additionally, you must ensure that these new features do not break the smooth functioning of the web application. So, we can justify that the growth of web applications is proportional to the total number of regression testing processes that the developers must perform. Some companies indirectly try to solve this problem by hiring more and more new automation testers. However, they need to realize that it is a very expensive process. So, the easiest and most effective way to solve this issue is to introduce automation testing.

• Decrease In the Testing Costs

Companies need to realize that they cannot eliminate manual testing by introducing test automation. This is because the Automation Testing infrastructure has some limitations and it cannot conduct all the testing processes. So, they need to get rid of these thought patterns that Automation Testing can help them to reduce the number of quality assessment engineers in the company. Certain testing processes including visual testing and exploratory testing cannot be performed without the watchful human eye. Introducing automation testing in the right areas can help companies to reduce their budget for the application development life cycle. Detecting the bugs early on in the development cycle can reduce the hassle in the production phase.

• Increasing the Accuracy of the Testing Process

Conducting the same testing processes over and over again can have mental stress on the automation testers. Due to stress issues, they can overlook various critical errors. This can hamper the core functionality of the web application. This is an area that can benefit massively from test automation. This is because the Automation Testing script can repeat the same tests hundreds of times without getting bored or distracted. Automation Testing can help the developers to increase the accuracy of the testing processes exponentially. Many industry leaders also believe that automating the redundant testing processes also increases the work satisfaction for automation testers. This is because they can innovate new features and improve the overall functionality of future updates.

• Quickly Delivering to the End-Users

In this fast-moving world, people have got very busy in life and cannot wait even a single moment for anything. So, the web company have to be very accurate with their delivery schedules to maintain their customer base. In this modern generation, you cannot expect your customers to stick to your company just because of brand loyalty. The only process to maintain and expand your user base is to quickly deliver high-quality applications. With regular practices, the developers can take up to 5 days to complete all the testing processes with manual testing. On the other hand, automation testing can complete all these processes in just 2 days. This can create a massive benefit for the companies in this highly competitive market.

• Better Integrations with the Tools

Tools play a vital role in increasing the overall efficiency of an Automation Testing environment. However, the developers must be careful while choosing the tools to maintain the synchronization between the testing processes. This is because every tool is unique and is made to serve a specific testing purpose. The companies must perform extensive research before proceeding with the selection process. During this process, you can consider various factors including the development project requirements and the preferences of the automation testers. Companies should also have a proper idea about the recent Automation Testing trends and all the new integrations. The developers should also have a proper idea about the ratings of tools before introducing them in the test environment. Let us use Lambdatest as an example to understand how a test environment can benefit from the proper tool:

Lamdatest is a Cloud-based platform to check the cross-browser compatibility of various web apps. The developers can use this platform to perform all the testing processes in a Selenium grid that is safe and secure. It also enables end-to-end encryption to test the sensitive information in the web app. Using this platform, the developer can also ensure the proper functioning of their natively hosted apps. Due to various features, thousands of companies globally use Lamdatest in their test environments. Lamdatest has a simple UI that stores all the test results for future references. It also has various features to support the growth of individual creators and small companies. Lamdatest also helps the companies to combine the automation test reports and the manual test results.

The Final Verdict

So, we can easily conclude that Automation Testing is one of the most essential tests to ensure the proper functioning of modern applications. Recently various companies are also integrating advanced technologies like cloud-based services and artificial intelligence with test automation infrastructure. The primary aim of this process is to increase the potential of the automation framework. Various companies usually measure the value of a test automation framework concerning the total number of testing hours that it saves. Test automation can help companies to save massive amounts of money at every stage of the development project. The main process to utilise the full potential of test automation is understanding the perfect time to implement it. While implementing Automation Testing, developers should consider those areas that can benefit from it the most. This is yet another factor that requires work experience.