Often, when people engage in automated testing, their primary focus shifts from designing the test well to ensuring that the automated code actually executes and runs the test. During sprints, when team members are under pressure to deliver stories within a limited time frame, there is often not enough time to test all planned scenarios, let alone write automated test scripts to test new features. We can get so caught up in the details of the work, the coding, the review, the execution, that we forget the main reason we’re really doing test automation!

Why do we automate tests?

Increase test range

How do we define coverage? If we have 100 tests, how do we measure coverage? For a given function, we can create more test cases, more test scenarios, and test with more input data to be more confident that the system is working as expected. However, in testing, and especially in test automation, more testing does not actually mean higher quality or more opportunities to find bugs.

To save time

To save time on automated testing, you need to put more effort into scripting automated tests, ensuring that code reviews are done, and that automated tests are executed without any hassle.

Find more errors

After new code is implemented, automated tests typically check to see if there is any regression in the system. There are always more opportunities to find bugs in new features than in existing ones.

Improve the quality

While automated testing can give us quick feedback and remind us about the health of our applications so that we can undo any code changes that break the system, automated testing by itself does not improve quality. Just because we have mature test automation doesn’t guarantee that any bugs won’t leak into the production environment. We can improve quality by ensuring that correct practices are followed from the beginning to the end of the development cycle. Quality is not an afterthought; It should have been thought of from the start. It is not enough to rely solely on automated testing to achieve product quality.

Repeatability.

We need to run the same tests over and over again. Do you need automation if you only need to run it once? Of course not! The time and effort spent on automated tests may have been successfully executed manually.

By definition, we automate repeatable tests (regression tests) that need to be performed frequently. So, when automating tests, think about how often you might run them? To learn more about automated tests, visit: www.eolinker.com