Test Automation Fundamentals
User Interface test automation is difficult at the best of times. Your teams need to work hard to keep automation suites running as smoothly as possible. Automation test suites need to focus on long-term maintainability and value since test software should always be treated with the same care and respect that our production code is treated. (Because test software is production software!)
Many teams struggle with getting stable automation suites in place, especially when their system’s user interface (UI) is changing. Frustration ramps up as teams spend more time chasing broken tests, and each change seems to work only for a few cycles. It’s not uncommon for teams to cut back on, or entirely abandon, their UI automation efforts.
This doesn’t have to be the case, though! Careful planning and implementation around element locator strategies can yield incredible results for automation suites. When I work with teams, I initially focus on element locator strategies since it’s the first place tests will fail at, especially when the UI is frequently updating.
In this article I’ll use Selenium WebDriver and Telerik’s Test Studio as examples; however, the concepts I’m discussing are applicable regardless of whether you’re using someone else’s commercial tool or any of the many wonderful open source APIs/drivers available to you.
Full article by Jim Holmes, Director of Engineering, Test Studio
About the Author
Roger Chu is the Marketing Coordinator at GSAmart, the leading GSA sales and marketing partner for technology companies.
