I have often observed that a lot of QA professionals get confused when it comes to what should be the automation coverage for an application.

Automation is meant to reduce cycle time of manual testing efforts and should mostly focus on functional coverage. In this article, we shall cover a few common myths concerning Automation Testing, along with the solution for each.

Myth 1:

Automation should include every single coverage of an application. A good Automation tool should be able to cover any web /windows application without having to put in more efforts towards coding.

Solution

Handle the Recorder Feature very carefully. Test with small scenarios and then move up to complex scenarios. Have a manual blank sheet with you, to understand the time taken for the cursor to move from one object to the other. Automating explicit wait time needs an inbuilt intelligence incorporated within the Automation Software. QARA as a solution, attempts to address this issue effectively.

Use a mix of recording and inclusion of manual steps to reach out to your desired goals. Do not lose patience over a tool as there could be something else missing out. For example, it might be that the product development team has not used IDs effectively, or even naming conventions could have been missed out.

Parameters Used in Contextual Search

There are many parameters that a contextual search engine takes into account, in order to make the results relevant to the user's query. Here we shall look 3 of the key ones.

Myth 2:

Automation tools claiming XPATH can be done away with.

Solution

Any good tool should be able to capture the XPATH effectively. There’s no escaping it, especially with the advent of so many frameworks emerging in the market, and multiple start-ups exploring multiple open source tools to develop their web applications.

Product Development Discipline is key to Automation Success

Myth 3:

Any Manual tester can get into automation scripting easily.

Solution

To be successful in Automation Testing, testers will need to get an understanding of the core logic framework of the Automation tool and have an Automation Approach Document available before automating test scripts. It is a good idea to refer to any automation testing tool book to understand the scripting best practices in test automation.

If that is getting a bit too tedious, just go with simple solution like QARA and pilot small projects towards automation. Here you can rely more on the recording / play back mechanism and look at how the script emerges

Myth 4:

Automation tool should cover every single aspect of Graphical User Interface (GUI) management

Solution

Possible as an ongoing process. Each new browser release, framework release, and tool release can impact some GUI elements. However, Automation is not about GUI testing but the focus should be more on functional testing. GUI, by default, is a small component of Automation testing.

So please ensure functional coverages are included more effectively to resolve our perceptions on automation testing and for us to use Automation tools more effectively.