How can you transition from manual to automated mobile testing?

1 Assess your current situation

Before you jump into automation, it's important to evaluate your current testing process, resources, and goals. Ask yourself what the main challenges and pain points of manual testing for your mobile app are, as well as the benefits and risks of automation. Consider the skills and tools required for automation and how much time and budget you have for it. Answering these questions will help you identify the gaps and opportunities for automation, so that you can set realistic expectations and priorities.

3 Design and write test scripts

Once you have selected an automation framework, you need to design and write your test scripts. Test scripts are code that instructs the automation tool to perform certain actions and verify certain outcomes on your app. It's important to use descriptive and consistent naming conventions for test cases, variables, and functions. Additionally, applying the principle of modularity and reusability can help avoid duplication and complexity. Furthermore, implementing the principle of data-driven testing can help separate test data from test logic. Moreover, using the page object model can abstract the UI elements and interactions from the test scripts. Finally, using comments and annotations can document and explain your test scripts.

4 Execute and monitor test runs

After writing your test scripts, you need to execute and monitor your test runs, which are the sessions where you run your test scripts on your app under different conditions and scenarios. Utilizing a test runner or a test management tool such as TestNG, JUnit, or TestRail can provide several benefits. For instance, these tools allow you to run multiple test scripts in parallel or in sequence and provide the ability to configure and customize your test runs. Additionally, they generate detailed and comprehensive test reports with pass/fail status, errors, logs, screenshots, and metrics. Finally, they enable you to track and manage your test cases, runs, and results in a centralized and organized manner.

5 Analyze and improve test results

After executing and monitoring your test runs, you should analyze and improve your test results. Test results are the outcomes and feedback of your test runs, such as the number of passed and failed test cases, the root causes of failures, the defects and bugs found, and the performance and quality metrics. Utilizing a test analysis tool or a bug tracking tool, like TestComplete, Bugzilla, or Jira, can be advantageous in visualizing and comparing your test results across different test runs, platforms, and environments. These tools also provide features to filter, sort, and search your test results based on various criteria and attributes. Moreover, they enable you to create, assign, and resolve defects and bugs based on your test results. Finally, they help you to identify and prioritize the areas and aspects of your app that need improvement or enhancement.

6 Review and optimize your automation strategy

After analyzing and improving your test results, it's important to review and optimize your automation strategy. Your automation strategy should include your objectives, scope, framework, tools, scripts, runs, results, and improvements. You should evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of your automation strategy periodically and iteratively based on feedback and data. This includes assessing the return on investment (ROI), coverage, reliability, and maintainability. Identifying strengths and weaknesses such as best practices, challenges, gaps, and risks can help you make necessary changes and enhancements to the strategy. Finally, measure and monitor the impact and outcome of your automation strategy to improve quality, speed, and cost of testing. By following these steps you can transition from manual to automated mobile testing successfully while improving testing quality, speed, and coverage. Ultimately this will result in a better mobile app for users and customers.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?