What is automation testing?

Imagine you own a software application, and you don’t have another choice besides verifying the system’s functionality by conducting an enormous number of test cases manually. That sounds so frustrating, and it is going to take you a lot of time. Therefore, test automation was created to tackle this problem.
Nowadays, automated testing is rising significantly and changing the way people think about software testing. Unlike manual testing, automation testing uses powerful tools to automatically control and execute the test cases. It allows the testers to simplify the repetitive test suite and boost bug fixes and detection efficiency, thus saving tremendous time and human effort.
This article helps you to understand more about automation testing and different types of test automation.

Types of automation testing

Which test cases can be automated?

Test automation is a powerful technique that helps to enhance the efficiency of the testing process. It is fantastic, but not all test cases can be automated. To select suitable test cases to be automated using the following criteria:

• Test cases are critical to the business
• Repeated test cases
• Test cases that are difficult to execute manually (Multilingual testing…)
• Test cases which demand a tremendous amount of time.

Types of testing

There are two main types of testing, which are functional and non-functional testing.

• Functional testing: Functional testing was executed to test the business aspects of the application to make sure that the functionality meets the expected requirements. Functional testing checks WHAT the system does
• Non-functional testing: Evaluates the performance, security and data storage, etc., of the application and compares with the expected results.Non-functional testing checks HOW well the system performs.

Example of functional and non-functional testing:
Airbnb is an online marketplace connecting travelers with local hosts. Functional testing will test the critical features of Airbnb (connecting the owner with the people who are looking for accommodation). Non-functional testing will test the security of owner-renter financial transactions and how fast and precise the application works.

Types of tests

There are five main types of tests:

• Smoke tests: Smoke testing is carried out to verify the most central features to ensure no problem in further testing.
• Integration tests: A test case consists of separate modules that must be tested as a whole to ensure smooth integration between them.
• Security tests: This identifies the loopholes and exposes all the vulnerabilities in the whole system.
• Performance tests: help the tester to check out the speed, responsiveness, stability, extensibility, and efficiency of the software. The goal of performance testing is to eliminate performance bottlenecks.
• Acceptance tests: This is the final step before launching the software to end-users. These tests determine how end-users accept our products.

Phases of testing:

• Unit: This is the very beginning level of testing, which tests the single units of the application. Unit tests can be done both manually and automatically by the developers before moving to the next phase to the testers.
• API: API stands for Application Programming Interface, which plays the role of an intermediary between two different software systems. API evaluates the integration between two layers in terms of reliability, performance, communication, and data transmission. This phase is pretty flexible. It can be conducted before or after the UI test.
• UI: User interface testing is the phase of the business mindset that was taken into consideration. It was tested at the end of the process. The tester tries to replicate the most accurate user experience possible to examine the user's interaction with the system before launching the product.

Automation testing frameworks

The test framework is not a tool or process; it is a compilation of various tools, processes to make the whole automation process easier to accomplish.
Test framework maintains the consistency of the process, making non-technical testers catch up with the entire workflow. Thus, it also improves the usability of codes and the test structure. Without a test framework, it is something like organizing the work out of control. It would be a disaster that affects the success of the entire team.
With those potential benefits, such a mistake if we don’t take test frameworks into account:

Types of framework

Record and playback framework
This is the easiest type of framework to apply. It’s mostly used for simple applications or beginners, just like making a video clip and then records and playback in different events and situations. Testers write a series of test scripts in advance and run the same test scripts in other test cases.
Modular automation framework
In the modular framework, the test cases were divided into small and independent modules or clusters. The tester also builds the test scripts to handle particular modules. These scripts can be unified by the master scripts to test the integration among the modules. The advantages of modular automation frameworks are flexible, easy to maintain, and scalable.
Data-driven automation framework
Data-Driven Automation Framework is a special technique that is able to separate the data set from the actual test case. With this unique technique, you can modify the test case in a specific functionality without changing the test scripts.

Tools to use for automated tests

There are plenty of automated testing tools available in the market. Choosing the right tools to conduct your test cases is very important based on your specific requirements. I want to recommend some awesome tools that may meet your critical needs.

Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio was built on top of Selenium and Appium; it not only preserves the best quality of Selenium and Appium but also extends the abilities of them. Katalon generates automated tests easily for all platforms and operating systems with complex applications.
https://www.katalon.com/

Selenium

Selenium is the open-source software that is the most popular automated testing tool in the market. Selenium is amazingly flexible, and it can support most of the programming languages (C#, Groovy, Java, Pearl, PHP, Python, and Scala) and operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux).
selenium.dev

Appium

Appium is an open-source, cross-platform test automation tool. It focuses mainly on testing mobile applications (Android or IOS) and automates test cases for native, web, and hybrid applications. Appium can be run in multiple programming languages and operating systems.
jmeter.apache.org

Ranorex

Ranorex is an automated test that specializes in functional UI test automation. Ranorex allows users to accelerate the UI test with consistency regardless of changes during the test, thanks to Ranorex’s smart object recognition.
ranorex.com

Conclusion

We hope that this useful guide will help you understand more about the types of automation testing and automation test frameworks. We also suggested some automated testing tools that are perhaps available to your application. If you see this article as useful, please share it with your friends and stay tuned to update our next article.