5 Tips for an Effective Test Automation Strategy

Integrating automated testing practices is essential to achieve shorter development cycles, avoid repetitive tasks, and ultimately improve software quality; maximizing the return on investment (ROI) from your testing strategy. But how do businesses start this journey?

Statistics affirm that test automation services make up for 50% of testing activities in almost half of the companies surveyed. It empowers businesses to test their software applications swiftly and with greater precision, enabling the quick identification and resolution of issues. For instance, e-commerce companies can use test automation to evaluate the performance of their checkout process, thereby ensuring a seamless customer experience.?

What is an Automated Testing Strategy?

A testing strategy is an organization’s roadmap for incorporating automated processes into the operations to prevent testing setbacks. It determines:

• Areas that require automation
• Testing tools and methodologies to be utilized in the software development life cycle

Why is an Automated Testing Strategy Needed?

Rapidly growing sectors, e.g. healthcare, with the increasing use of smart devices, growing population, evolving lifestyles, and higher levels of mass awareness, will expand exponentially. Studies have stated a CAGR of 15% between 2023 and 2032.

Combining the high levels of growth and fast adoption of data-driven automation frameworks, all test data generation is expedited, enabling a larger collection of test data spanning multiple scenarios. An inadequate strategy will lead to downtimes, lower customer satisfaction, and a negative brand reputation. Benefits of a robust strategy include:

• Avoiding Faulty Tool Selection: In the absence of a strategy, the wrong tools might be chosen which can prove detrimental in the long run.?
• Proper Risk Analysis: An effective strategy helps in the proactive prediction of risks involved with test automation and the ways to contain or alter them.?
• Time and Resource Savings: Automated tests run faster and have higher degrees of precision than manual intervention, avoiding repetitive and time-consuming tasks.
• Quicker Feedback: With faster delivery of results, the quality and user experience of a product can be enhanced much faster as compared to manual testing.??

Top Tips for a Successful Automated Testing Strategy

The key aspects leading to a successful plan include:

QA Outsourcing

QA experts have the requisite industry knowledge and training to implement the best security and compliance strategies. Utilizing the right tools, frameworks, and technologies for testing software products ensures its optimum performance. Outsourcing the quality assurance needs to a skilled team reduces costs in comparison to domestic alternatives or assigning the QA testing to the developers.?

Balanced Automated and Manual Testing

Striking the right balance between the speed of automated testing and human insights of manual testing is another advantage of partnering with a QA service provider. Manual testing is more labor-intensive, but there is no better alternative to simulate the end-user experience as well.

Prioritizing Automatable Test Cases

Appropriate categorization of automatable and non-automatable test cases proves to be a major time saver. The QA specialists at United Techno use different parameters - which are the tests that are executed frequently, which are the ones that take a long time through manual execution, and more. This ensures a high-priority coverage of the application features from a business perspective.

?ROI Calculation of Automation

Detailed and transparent documentation of the preferred approach helps in anticipating the ROI of the automation investment, even before implementing any framework. A proper time estimation is another associated benefit. It also ensures proper resource planning for the automation initiative.?

Selecting the Right Tool and Developing an Accurate Framework

With the available flexibility in the market for automation solutions, QA experts become inevitable resources for choosing the appropriate tool based on the project and platform requirements. The United Techno QA team evaluates the leading tools available for any client requirement and selects the best option. Proper tool selection and several other factors have to be considered while setting up a sustainable test framework to last the entire life cycle of a product.? ?

Get the Right Strategy in Place

Building a testing roadmap around the above-mentioned elements goes a long way to implement a reliable, reusable, and result-oriented QA process. A quality-assured product is the end result. Proper attention to detail helps in building a firm and lasting foundation.

United Techno’s QA CoE has delivered many successful products against challenging client requirements. Our testing features have been developed over a number of years of relevant experience. Faster, cost-efficient, and time-bound deliveries have been critical in establishing clients’ trust in our testing capabilities.?

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