Adding automated UI testing tools to your process can significantly speed up your test cycles and free up valuable time and resources. In order to help you make the most of your automated testing software, we’ve created a list of best practices to improve test design, execution, and reporting.
What Is Automated UI Testing?
Automated UI testing software uses a suite of scripts and tools to both speed up the testing process and improve its quality by eliminating a degree of user errors. Automated UI testing tools simulate user actions such as entering texts, navigating pages and applications, or clicking buttons.
The advantage of an effective automated testing software is that tests can easily be run multiple times with no variation. Automated regression tests can also check new updates to your software and quickly detect issues that have been introduced before they are available to the user.
Maintaining solid testing practices will help avoid issues that can come up in the automated UI testing process. Those issues can include creating more tests than are necessary or chasing down false positives and negatives.
Best Practices for UI Testing
Use a Reliable UI Element Scanner
One of the most useful UI automation testing tools is a scanner that can relay key information through element identification. Ranorex Spy maintains an object repository and uses abstraction layers to improve collaboration. The object repository enables users to edit the objects, assign them names, set default values, and link them to parameter values.
Create Comprehensive Test Reports
Manual test reporting can be tedious and time-consuming, but test automation reporting can save your team time and make their jobs easier. It can also make for better reports that are less prone to human error. Ranorex can create detailed test reports that help your team better understand their software issues and how to improve the testing process.
Deploy Record and Playback Tools
Record and playback tools are an effective way for your team members to communicate with each other and a great teaching tool for those with less experience. Allowing more experienced testers to record the execution of their tests, enables newer testers to implement those tests for themselves and see how they work. Not only does this free up time for your most senior testers, but it allows you to more easily onboard new testers.
Use Behavior-Driven Development
Not everyone can be an expert in UI automation testing, which is why Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) is such a useful methodology. Under BDD, members of your testing team with little or no coding experience can still make valuable contributions to your process. For instance, you can use Ranorex’s IDE and automation API tools in conjunction with SpecFlow’s BDD Interpreter and NUnit’s Test Provider to create a tool stack that allows your team to convert files from natural language to written code in order to execute tests.
Try Multiple Testing Methods
There is a wide range of testing methods available to you, and knowing how to apply the right method will ensure necessary test coverage while being time-efficient. Understanding the difference between functional and nonfunctional testing, and knowing how your team should approach regression testing vs. performance testing is crucial to your success.
Maintain Efficient Test Coverage
One of the biggest problems that teams run into is becoming bogged down in too many tests. This is especially an issue for teams with less experience that may create too many tests out of an abundance of caution. That’s where a tool like DesignWise comes in. DesignWise is a test design software that features a coverage dial that allows the user to set parameters like the coverage of low-risk scenarios to ensure you’re completing the right amount of tests for that phase.
Run Tests in Parallel
If you have tests that need to run on multiple devices, it can be extremely time-consuming to run each test in succession. The benefit of Ranorex is that it allows you to run tests in multiple environments simultaneously. That includes tests on the web, a desktop, and mobile devices, including on both real-world devices and emulators.
Use a Test Automation Pyramid (or Something Different)
The test automation pyramid is a classic approach to decreasing the amount of UI tests that a team needs to run. However, as software and testing cycles become increasingly complex, there are new ways to think of the test automation pyramid. We’ve proposed a context-based hub and spoke model that allows teams to be more flexible while still reducing the amount of necessary UI tests.
UI Automation Testing with Ranorex Studio
Ranorex Studio has a wide range of tools that make the job of UI testers easier. It has a full development environment, a flexible API interface, and built-in integrations with Jira, TestRail, Jenkins, and more. Ranorex Studio allows users to pull test data from CSV, Excel files, or an SQL database for data-driven testing and offers features such as video reporting of test execution, PDF validation, and the Ranorex Coach for test healing.
For more information on automation testing best practices and how to get the most out of Ranorex’s tools, check out our wealth of educational and support resources. They include training webinars, a user guide, a help center, and the Ranorex Champions Training program.
Start a Free Trial of Ranorex Today
Ready to start using an effective automated UI testing software in your process? Start a free trial of Ranorex Software to check out our full suite of tools for yourself.
