Web Testing Automation

How to Drive Maximum Value From Web Testing Automation

By Yana Yelina 4 years ago
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When it comes to automated web testing, project managers cite cost reduction and faster time to market as key reasons why this practice should be integrated into their next software development undertaking. But as web automation is a complex process that requires tech competence, reliable tools, and efforts, you’ll need to understand what test types will bring you more value when automated.

Leveraging Automated UI Tests

UI is the first thing users pay attention to. So to make a great first impression, your website should be thoroughly checked for consistency to UI mockups, visual prototypes, and corporate guidelines. With web test automation, this can be done faster and more accurately as compared to manual testing.

Namely, you’ll be able to accelerate the process of verifying the appearance, positioning, and grouping of web controls and graphical objects, style consistency across all pages of your website, spelling and grammar, as well as appropriate use of colors in links, backgrounds, and fonts.

Test automation will also help you examine your website’s compliance with web content accessibility standards, making sure it’s usable for people with disabilities like poor hearing, color blindness, and more. Among the aspects that should be thoroughly checked is the availability of keyboard equivalents for all mouse operations, audio alerts, video controls, color flexibility, and more.

Automation Around Functional Testing

Functional testing is set to make sure your web solution works the way it’s supposed to, i.e. seamlessly performs all its functions. But as any web application has a huge number of features each of them addressing a particular user need, it won’t be rational to test them manually. And web test automation will save you time and resources.

In particular, you can run automated web tests to check your sign-in functionality:

  • Registering and logging in with a valid username and valid password and the time spent doing it
  • ‘Forgot password’ and ‘Remember me’ features
  • Notifications for invalid login
  • ‘Cancel’ and ‘Enter’ buttons
  • Logging in simultaneously with different credentials in a different browser

Other functionality you can easily verify with automated web tests includes financial transactions, promo application, social sharing, search, product or content recommendations, and more.

Automatically Checking Performance

Fast web page loading is one of the key factors on the way of increasing user satisfaction. Web test automation will help you make sure the load time won’t exceed two minutes and clients won’t leave your website without completing the action they planned (making a purchase, requesting a quote, consulting FAQ, interacting with a chatbot, etc.).

The allure of automated tests is that you can notably lower the time spent on verifying your website performance under high load across different browsers and their versions as well as various devices and their operating systems.

For example, if you’re an owner of an eCommerce business, test automation will help you rapidly make sure your e-store won’t go down during the Holiday rush. And if you decide to launch an online video platform, leverage automated QA to guarantee a seamless viewing experience for a virtually infinite number of concurrent users.

Revamping Localization Testing

One more testing type you can automate for accelerated and bug-free development is localization testing. This way, you automatically verify whether your software corresponds to the linguistic and cultural aspects for a particular locale where your solution will be used and introduce all the necessary changes.

Automated localization testing usually revolves around content and UI. To wit, you can use it to check how different alphabets are displayed within different browsers — including right-to-left languages — and whether their formatting is correct.

Besides, automated web tests will help you make sure that:

  • Time and date are formatted for the target region
  • Currency corresponds to the locale
  • Phone number formats and zip codes are properly displayed
  • The localized UI is relevant to that of the source solution
  • The website complies with the local license regulations and privacy rules

A Brief Overview

Web test automation can bring tangible business benefits, including increased product quality, accelerated time to market, and lower development costs, which in turn results in outstanding user experiences. But no matter whether you engage an internal team or outsource dedicated QA engineers, conduct a detailed ROI analysis to understand the feasibility of automation for particular testing types throughout the development.

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