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Common Challenges in Automated Testing and How to Address Them

Automation testing is effective, quick, and essential in software development. Its ability to boost productivity and achieve milestones more quickly and effectively has made test automation a new trend in the tech industry.

There are numerous benefits to using automation testing. It produces a high-quality product with exceptional performance and increased reliability. Automation testing is preferred over manual testing because it results in better software performance and requires much lower maintenance costs. 

Nowadays, almost every IT firm is adopting Automation testing to test their software. That is why it is crucial to acknowledge the pain points that come with it. 

This blog will discuss challenges affecting the overall automation test effort and project success.                                                                              

Common Challenges in Automation Testing 

The most important part of being in a team is contributing and communicating effectively. Teams are made to acknowledge different perspectives and become more diverse as an individual.

That is why whenever we work in a team, we must keep everyone updated so that no one feels left out or unaligned with the team members. Automation testing requires timely collaboration and strategic planning. 

Everyone on the team, including developers, business analysts, project managers, technical architects, and some sample groups of customers, come together to create a test plan, scope, and timeframe of the test strategy. Things must be detailed and specific from the beginning so that each team member can start working on their tasks immediately. 

An Automation testing team must work together and provide historical data, proof of concept, and other massive evidence. Everything will be executed smoothly if the team members are in proper alignment. Establishing this alignment and seamless coordination is a challenge in itself. 

This is a lot of work that can be done effortlessly with an understanding team. On the other hand, if the members are not supportive or collaborative, things will become more complicated. 

How to solve this issue?

The purpose and goal of the team should be made crystal clear from day one. Doing this will keep the entire team on the same page, and the members will know their roles well. 

Apart from the time, scope, and timeframe, automation testers have to discuss what should and shouldn’t be automated with manual testers, developers, and technical architects. 

Proper training should be provided so members can be aware of the outlook and take timely feedback about the tasks they don’t feel good about. 

Lastly, a common communication channel should increase the team’s overall results. 

Choosing the right testing framework is crucial for the testing process. There are chances that your test plan will only work if the correct tool is selected wisely and diligently. 

The nature and extent of automated testing determine which tool will be used for the process. The team does all the required research and ensures the selected tool is cost-effective and efficient. The whole development cycle can be hampered if we use a tool that lacks expertise in any way possible. 

We live in an era where technology is getting increasingly advanced daily. Due to this, the number of options we have today is insane. We have free and open-source tools like Selenium and Katalon and other paid tools like TestComplete, which support testing types and situations. 

The strategy and methodology of testing are only helpful if the execution matches both business and technical requirements. That is why finding the right testing framework can be exhausting at times. Finding the one that suits you the best is a real challenge. 

How do we solve this issue? 

First, you must gather information about your project and its requirements, then look for technical support and assistance. The project’s requirements give you an idea about its needs and make it easier to look for the right tool. 

While searching for the correct framework, you must check and recheck some of its features. Developers and testers must be aware of the tools cross-browsing testing compatibility. The tool should be easy to maintain and cost-efficient. 

Last, compare different tools by evaluating their pros and cons and take proof of concept before finalizing.

LambdaTest is a cloud-based cross-browser testing platform that provides infrastructure and tools for testing web applications across more than 3000+ browsers, OS, and devices. LambdaTest offers several features that can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of automated testing. LambdaTest allows parallel testing of numerous automated tests, reducing testing time. The platform integrates popular test automation frameworks such as Selenium, Appium, Jest, and Playwright.

You can have all the communication and collaboration. Even find the perfect tool/ framework for automation testing, but it will never be worth it if you don’t have enough skilled people with you. 

Automation testing needs efficient tools with super-skilled developers and testers. It’s a vicious cycle that cannot be completed if even one of the components is missing. There are several myths that anyone can handle automation testing because the tools provide every important thing needed. 

But that is just not true. Automation testing is a complex subject requiring developers to have sufficient technical skills to resolve errors and maintain a test automation framework. 

Finding skilled people is challenging because it requires a high level of investment. Some organizations looking to scale up quickly need help to afford to hire high-paid employees. 

How to solve this issue? 

You can hire people with coding skills but need more technical expertise. People with coding skills tend to charge higher than those with zero or poor coding skills.

It is essential to have a proper testing approach that works well with both frameworks and developers. It is considered to be one of the biggest challenges of automation testing. 

The team members must ask questions to find the right testing approach. Every time any question is answered, the strategy and the approach become much more straightforward.

How to solve this issue?

Team members have to ask how they can get more results by putting minimal effort into the implementation and maintenance of test scripts and test suites. How can we generate useful test reports and metrics while developing the agile testing methodology? 

Addressing these questions may be challenging, but it is worth the effort. The application under test tends to change through development cycles, so we need to design and implement these test suits so that keeping up with these changes is easy and affordable. 

Automation testing is supposed to be automatic, and their tests must run without human interference. The issues will be detected and handled automatically with the right testing approach. 

The primary and only aim of automation testing is to make the product better in every way possible. Testing is done to find its errors and make it more user-friendly. 

The end-users, stakeholders, investors, developers, testers, and everyone who is somehow invested in the product what it to be the best. The users want to use an app that functions according to their expectations. 

That is why keeping everyone’s expectations in mind while testing the software is crucial. We don’t want to make an app that disappoints people, do we? Every member of the automation testing team must keep this in mind. 

How do we solve this issue?

We can solve this issue by ensuring everyone agrees on how the software should function. The anticipated outcomes of the automation strategy must be satisfactory for the testing team and others.

This is yet another challenge that comes with effortless automation testing. Data management has always been complex, and automation is challenging and more accessible.  

The data should be in a specific state while executing the tests. Any change in the data state can cause severe issues in various scenarios. 

How do we solve this issue?

Developers need to conduct self-contained and independent test scripts. These scripts must be written so that the execution is successful and any kind of data loss or change is prevented. 

An effective technique should be maintained to deal with these data-related difficulties so that any test failure does not occur.

Conclusion

Automation testing is a challenging task. It is filled with numerous challenges and hurdles. Whether it’s about finding the right tool or a skilled person, there are challenges everywhere. There are several precautions that the testing team needs to take at every step of the execution. 

Some of the significant challenges, like managing the data, dealing with expectations, and finding the right testing approach, were discussed in this blog. There are different ways through which these challenges can be quickly resolved. You just have to keep the determination and will to keep going, and the rest will automatically fall into place.

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