Although software development teams conduct testing of their products, software defects still exist in the delivered products. Test engineers aim to detect these defects before software release, but they often sneak in and re-emerge despite the most efficient manual testing processes. Software testing automation is the ultimate solution to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and coverage of software testing.

Why software testing automation?

Every software development team tests its product, but distributed software always has bugs. Test engineers try to detect them before the product is released, but they always creep in and they often reappear, even with the best manual testing procedures. Software testing automation is the best method to increase the performance and scope of your software testing.

Manual software testing is performed by a person sitting in front of a computer carefully looking through application screens, trying different combinations of inputs and usages, comparing results with expected behavior, and recording their observations. Manual software testing is repeated frequently during software development life cycles for source code changes and other scenarios such as hardware configurations.

What are the benefits of software testing automation?

Automated testing saves time and money

Software testing must be repeated frequently in development cycles to ensure quality. Every time the source code is modified, the software tests must be repeated. For each software release, it can be tested on all supported operating systems and hardware configurations. Manually repeating these tests is expensive and time consuming. Once created, automated tests can be run over and over again at no extra cost and they are much faster than manual tests. Software testing automation can reduce repetitive test running time from days to hours. Time savings translate directly into cost savings.

Dramatically increase your test coverage

Software testing automation can increase the depth and scope of testing to help improve software quality. Long tests that are normally avoided during manual testing can be run unattended. They can even run on multiple computers with different configurations. Test automation can easily execute thousands of different complex test cases in each test run, providing coverage that cannot be achieved by manual tests.

Experiment to improve accuracy

Even the most dedicated testers will make mistakes during monotonous manual testing. Automated testing executes exactly the same steps every time they are executed and never forgets to record detailed results. Testers who are freed from repetitive manual tests will have more time to create new automated software tests and deal with complex features.

Conclusion

While software testing automation is considered essential for organizations, both large and small, to deploy in order to deliver excellent software and stay competitive in the industry, it can be difficult to get started. Creating an effective roadmap, building robust frameworks, choosing the right tools, and measuring the potential financial impact automation can have on your delivery lifecycle are all important. important component of any successful automated testing strategy, but each step has its own set of challenges and costs.