With the competition among software companies intensifying every day, there is tremendous pressure on organizations to deliver top-quality software products in a limited time. However, companies realize that they cannot sidestep the critical process of software testing, which ensures that every product is comprehensively evaluated for its performance, user-friendliness and reliability. Those who have deviated from the process have faced consequences like their apps getting uninstalled or rejected and losing customers and reputation.
The increasing demand for speedy delivery of perfect software to consumers in a short span of time has necessitated the use of test automation due to the limitations of manual testing methods. Automation testing has been the game changer for testing teams, enabling them to run faster and more accurate test cases. Most companies are switching to automation testing, proven by a study conducted by IBISWorld, stating that the market size of the software testing industry in the US in 2022 was $2.3 billion, registering an increase of 6%.
Key benefits of automation testing
- Cost savings for the company
- Enhanced test accuracy
- Speedier development and delivery
- Support for CI/CD and DevOps implementation
- Better productivity
- Improved app quality
Though these advantages of automation testing cannot be denied, the truth is that test automation’s success varies from project to project. Using inappropriate tools has resulted in financial losses and wasted time and effort for many testing teams.
Types of automation testing tools
The automation tools available in the market fall into these broad categories:
- Open-source automation testing tools: Testers can access the source code of these tools and can adopt or modify it to match their requirements. Such tools are free of cost and developed by the community. As they allow customization of test cases, these tools are popular among automation testers with a coding background.
- Commercial tools: These are made exclusively for commercial purposes and are available to testers through subscription plans. Users require a paid license to access and use the software. These tools come with many premium features and customer support.
- Custom framework: For certain niche projects that require different testing processes and environments, commercial or open-source tools are not sufficient. In such cases, it becomes necessary to develop custom software aligning with your testing needs.
Undoubtedly, for any automation testing project to succeed, choosing the right tool aligning with your unique needs and demands is a primary requirement. Once you decide to adopt automation, you need to devise a strategic approach to select the right testing tool. This blog outlines how organizations can choose the right tool for their project.
Steps to take while selecting an automation tool
For your reference, we outline below the pointers that will make your tool selection process more effective and less challenging.
- Know your testing requirements clearly
Outlining your goals clearly is the secret to success for any automation testing project. So, first, identify the specific needs of your project. The tool you choose should save you time and money while meeting your requirements. By answering the following questions, you can gain insights into your project needs:
- What type of application are you testing – API, web, desktop or mobile application?
- Are you working on a web or mobile app that needs cross-browser or cross-device testing?
- Do you plan to use a specific programming language for our automation testing?
- What is the budget of your team?
- What programming skills and technical expertise will your team need to get familiarized with the tool?
You are free to add more requirements that you feel are important.
- Determine your budget
Your budget is an important criterion when selecting a suitable testing tool for your project. You have to choose a tool that fits your project’s size and complexity while matching your budget. Consider aspects like these:
- Ease of automation: If you select a tool that makes developing and maintaining test cases easy, you could benefit from cost savings.
- Learning curve: You could consider opting for a tool that does not require your team to spend too much time learning about its usage. Such a decision would help you derive an indirect benefit in terms of the resources spent on learning the tool.
- Cost of human resources: To save costs, it would be practical to go for a tool that prevents additional expenditure for hiring new resources for automation.
- Identify the skills of your team
To operate automation tools and to run and execute tests, a minimum programming skill level is needed. So, assessing the weaknesses and strengths of your testing team is important. Here are some guidelines to consider:
- Evaluate the testing and programming skills of the team who will be using the automation tool you select for your project.
- If your team members are already skilled in some programming language, you can consider picking an automation tool based on that language.
- If you would prefer a tool that does not require programming skills or expert knowledge, you can think of choosing a codeless automation tool.
- Make a checklist of the essential criteria you want in your tool
To get the best out of your automation tool, you need to decide beforehand what features you require in the tool you select. You can add more items to the list below as per your needs:
- Check if the tool is suitable only for this specific project or if it can be used for future projects as well.
- Assess if the user interface of the tool is simple and easy to use.
- See if the application under test requires testing for a variety of data. If so, you need to check if the tool you have shortlisted supports data-driven testing.
- Check whether the tool offers support for integration with test management, collaboration, and bug-reporting tools.
- See if the tool is a unified automation testing tool solution for web and mobile applications or if it can be used only for specific test environments.
- Evaluate the reporting features of the tool and see if it can provide comprehensive and rich reports, including videos, screenshots, and test logs.
- Check for test reusability and script maintenance capabilities.
- Compare the shortlisted tools before making a final decision
Take quality time to conduct a detailed analysis of the tools you have selected. Doing so will have a significant impact on the success of your automation project. Here are some guidelines you can follow:
- Evaluate the automation tools you have shortlisted
- Generate a scorecard based on the parameters mentioned above to get more confidence about the tool you select
- Choose the tool that has the maximum score
Conclusion
Though the process of evaluating and selecting an automation tool can be daunting, it is prudent to allot focused time for the same to ensure the best outcomes for your testing project.
By leveraging the right automation testing platform, you can take your software development process to greater heights. Placing your trust in a reliable codeless automation testing platform like TestGrid will help you easily achieve your objectives of shortening your release cycles and consistently delivering perfect, error-free software products to consumers.
TestGrid, with its AI-powered testing capabilities, makes even testing the most complicated applications an easy task. You can utilize the platform to perform all types of testing, whether API testing or cross-browser testing, and derive performance metrics without needing additional software set-ups.
By empowering you to run hundreds of test cases in parallel, TestGrid significantly speeds up your testing process and cuts down excess expenditure, making it a highly cost-effective automation testing platform for organizations worldwide.