Importance of Automated Testing in Quality Assurance

Any software development company carrying out testing for its products to ensure optimum output free of any performance glitches is an extremely important aspect of the development process. But despite the focus on quality assurance and testing output, it is not rare for the development companies to find faults with the software products after their release. For most development companies and their QA testing team it remains an uncanny concern to detect these deep-lying bugs and errors before the product is officially released.

Manual testing processes are often held responsible for under-satisfactory testing results that leave errors undetected. In contrast, test automation is more efficient and effective in catching errors and finding fault lines in software products. Manual testing, which is done by individual testing professionals analyzing the application screens and using various use contexts and inputs and evaluating app results in multiple contexts and use scenarios, needs to go through different development cycles.

In contrast, automated testing tools by recording various combinations of use contexts and input scenarios and their respective results can evaluate the apps’ performance faster and in a more streamlined manner. Without requiring to repeat the manual testing processes throughout the development cycles, development companies can utilize automation testing tools for fast-paced performance evaluation. The best part is, automated testing tools are effective and are equally efficient in areas where manual testing has little scope or is less effective.

Here in this post, we are going to explain the most essential advantages of automated testing.

The Scope of Manual Testing vs Automated Testing

Both manual and automated testing are in use across software projects across the niches, and both have their respective pros and cons. While big software development companies find automation testing tools as an invincible part of their software development processes, they cannot entirely repudiate the role of manual testing.

Manual testing will always be there as the role of the testing team and QA specialists cannot be just undermined. At the same time, automation testing tools, because of their efficiency and high-quality testing output, are likely to remain critical parts of software development and testing processes. In specific contexts, where evaluating the software from an actual human perspective is essential, manual testing will play an important role. Remember, you still have to hire quality analyst testers besides using the most sophisticated automation testing tools. But for all general-purpose testing areas and for detecting errors, automation testing is more efficient.

The Key Advantages of Test Automation

Automation testing for software projects is beneficial in many respects. Quality Analysis (QA) teams of development companies find them useful to cut short the testing tasks while remaining free of concerns regarding the testing output.

Let us explain the key advantages of test automation for the QA teams one by one.

Optimum Test Coverage

Automation testing is known for providing optimum test coverage since it is capable of cutting short the time for each testing task without affecting the testing output. Since more tests can be carried out in less time, the testing converge for the automation testing tools is likely to be optimum. This enhanced test coverage is also possible because it can be carried out without requiring human intervention and attention. This also ensures more efficient utilization of the time invested for testing.

Optimum Testing Accuracy

Manual testing as has been explained already involves the chances of human errors irrespective of the experience and expertise of the testing professionals. In contrast automation testing tools completely eradicate the chances of such errors. Automation testing tools are particularly effective for complicated software projects where human errors are obvious.

Fast Paced Testing Output

Automation testing thanks to its recorded database and continuous learning from the previous errors and use cases can detect errors faster and can complete software testing a lot quicker than the manual testing professionals. This faster pace of testing gives QA teams a comfort zone to carry out more tests and repeat tests several times to ensure proper evaluation.

Bigger Scope of Software Testing

Automation testing is useful in test cases where manual testing is found to be non-effective. There are several examples of such test cases where automation testing is the only helpful mode of testing. For instance, you can take regression testing that requires carrying out tests covering various data sets and user inputs. Carrying out such tests manually can be a gigantic task involving too much time and effort besides enhancing the chances of errors. In contrast, such tests can easily be carried out by automation testing tools.

Reusing Test Cases

Another important advantage of automation testing is the reusability of one test case for different software versions or different software applications. If a software shares the similar use case attributes for certain features and functions with other similar applications or future versions of the same software, the same testing case can be reused to detect bugs and errors in all these software use cases. In addition to this, software automation testing tools can actually reduce testing time by completing repetitive testing tasks faster.

Early Detection of Errors

Thanks to automation testing the developers don’t need to wait for the testing results till the completion of the development as automation testing tools can detect bugs only in the early stages of the development. Apart from saving time and costs for the software projects, this early detection also helps prevent more faults that can keep mounting on a previous error.

Quality Software Output

Automation testing, with its exceptional test coverage, unprecedented accuracy, and streamlined testing throughout the development life cycle ensures optimizing testing output in a never-before manner. Thanks to such efficiency, automation testing tools guarantee to create software products that have gone through multiple layers of testing for offering excellent performance and glitch-free output. When you want your software product to meet the highest quality standards, you cannot help but embrace automation testing.

Huge Cost Advantage

Another important advantage of testing automation is the cost-benefit compared to manual testing. Because of detecting the bugs early and often, fixing them incurs less cost to the development company resulting in more competitive pricing for the final product.

Better Return on Investment (ROI)

At a highly competitive market where controlling bottom-line costs and improving revenue becomes challenging for the software development companies, automation testing is also embraced to ensure a higher return on investment. Though test automation involves initial investment in certain tools, in the long run it pays off in terms of the lower cost of testing and improved output, both of which ultimately result in the better saleability of the software product and enhanced revenue.

Hitting Market Faster 

For any software development company india hitting the market quicker with a software product has its clear business advantages. This is where automation testing tools become very useful. They save a lot of time by allowing simultaneous execution of testing across multiple test cases, reusing testing results for similar and repetitive tasks, etc. All of these help a company to produce and market the software product faster.

Creating a Productive Team

As automation testing tools take care of all repetitive tasks lowering the mundane workload from the shoulders of the developers and QA professionals, the morale of the team and their productivity can be enhanced several notches higher. It puts your developers and testers at ease and helps them concentrate on more important responsibilities instead of handling repetitive tasks.

Conclusion

With so much to offer, no wonder automation testing has become a cornerstone in software development projects worldwide. Automation testing tools also helped create a level playing field for all enterprises to achieve better software performance.