Top 5 Ways To Effectively Apply Selenium Test Automation

The pressing need for testing a software to ensure its quality and consequent user acceptance has encouraged companies to explore the open source platforms. The reasons testers prefer the use of an open source platform vis-a-vis a licensed one are due to the former’s flexibility, ease of writing automated test scripts and cost advantage, amongst others.

A licensed platform, on the other hand, usually confines the testers to the use of specific languages only. Amongst the many open source testing platforms, the advantages of Selenium clearly outweigh others as far as test automation of applications is concerned.

This brings forth the importance of test automation to ensure the quality of software. It does so by enlarging the test coverage area and by carrying out repetitive testing. We have no doubts that test automation is better at identifying glitches in the shortest possible time. In doing so, it also ensures faster time to market, a better user response, and further cost benefits.

The market has many testing tools that developers leverage to meet the objectives of quality, speed and time. Amongst many Test Automation tools, Selenium has proven to be the best suited to carry out performance, regression and Selenium automation testing to achieve better test outcomes. Let us find out the top 5 ways to implement Selenium test automation effectively.

1. Choose the IDE/browser/language: Since the Selenium automation framework provides the option of choosing the IDE/browser or language, the testers should use the one that suits the application or product the most. Also, during the testing of a web application, the focus should be on ensuring the web application’s compatibility with browsers.
2. Train the human resource: One of the primary objectives of using test automation through a Selenium automation testing framework is to speed up testing. Hence, the testing team should not use the crucial testing time for learning about the various features of the tool. The team should instead get quickly well versed with the Selenium tool and its many features before executing the test.
3. Carry out performance, regression and functional testing: The effective functioning of any application depends on a slew of factors. The factors include how the application performs when the load is increased beyond the specified limit or its apparent behaviour when certain changes are made. Hence, Selenium automation testing must effectively write and run test automation scripts for performance, regression and functional testing.
4. Plan the test outcomes: Test automation involves repeated execution of test scripts wherein inputs are checked for specified outcomes. These expected outcomes should be decided beforehand in consultation with the developers. The outcomes willdecide if the functioning of an application is in accordance with the defined parameters or stated objectives. Selenium automation testing is also about generating a good test data for future reference. The test data gathered would be of help during any future testing exercise by reducing the test time. The time saved would be on account of understanding the test scenario beforehand and as a consequence, doing the actual test quickly.
5. Use the reports and dashboard effectively: The testing process generates various reports, which should be leveraged to strategize the next round of testing.

Conclusion

The effective run of Selenium automated testing ensures early and effective bug detection, resulting in faster time-to-market. The flexibility of Selenium with its multiple use of languages, browsers and IDEs makes it an ideal open source testing platform.

Diya works for Cigniti Technologies, Global Leaders in Independent Software Testing Services Company to be appraised at Cmmi-Svc v1.3, Maturity Level 5, and is also Iso 9001:2015 & Iso 27001:2013 certified.