A Quick Guide to Automated Testing

Automated Testing: Why it’s necessary and how it’s beneficial

It may not be the greatest advancement over the past 50 years, but the ability to copy and paste text, images, and more is quite amazing. Without it, one would spend more time retyping information everyday. It's a function that helps to increase our efficiency and productivity.

Like this feature, automated testing is another function that makes life easier, especially for those that build and test apps, websites, software, and more, as it provides many benefits including greater effectiveness and efficiency.

What is Automated Testing?

Automated testing is the use of a programmed script to test one or more functions of an app, website, or software at regular intervals and/or across multiple platforms.

Today, apps, websites, and software are frequently updated providing new features, an improved user experience (UX), and more. Since any code changes can result in unexpected bugs, every update should trigger a new round of testing. If not, one runs the risk of launching an update that actually results in a poorer performance and worse experience for the user.

Why Use Automated Testing?

Simply put, automated testing provides a more effiecient way to assess the quality of apps, websites, 

When it comes to repeated testing, manual testing is not the way to go due to the fact that they actually take longer to perform than automated testing.

Why would a test need to be repeated? During the development cycle, the code for an app, for example, undergoes numerous changes. As the code is changed, there is a new risk of bugs in the code. Therefore, it is imperative to test the app for bugs after each update or code change. This type of testing is known as regression testing,  which is designed to ensure updates to the code do not produce bugs that affect other aspects of the app. 

Thanks to regression testing,  the development team can uncover and fix bugs earlier and before they become more costly and difficult to resolve at the end of the project.  Additionally, retesting may be required when it is necessary to perform the same tests across multiple versions of an operating system, for example.  

Nonetheless, automated testing leads to a faster test execution when compared to manual testing. It is also important to note that the test report is generated automatically with automated testing providing important results to the development team. Under a manual test, it is the tester that creates the report.

How is Automated Testing Beneficial?

While automated testing requires a tester to spend time creating the testing script, it will actually save more time in the long run since running the automated test repeatedly does not take any time at all.

At the very same time, automated testing frees up testers to perform other tests to cover more ground and provide a greater QA assessment. Furthermore, the time saved using automated testing can also ensure that the product is delivered on time respecting the timeline and, as a result, the budget.

Another great benefit of automated testing is the ability to test around the clock. Testers can only be expected to test when they are on the clock. The testing script is, however,  always on the clock and can therefore be executed 24/7. Thus, tests are completed when needed, not when possible.

Additionally, automated testing allows one to test with greater  accuracy and consistency. For any tester, fatigue, boredom, distractions, and more can result in less consistent testing, especially when performing the same test over and over again. This is not the case for the automated testing script ensuring the tests are completed in a reliable and consistent manner to generate the best assessment as possible.

To learn more about automated testing, please do not hesitate to download our white paper below.