Understanding the Pitfalls Leading to Test Automation Failure

Test automation is one of the smartest and fastest ways to ensure the quality of software products. It involves using various automated tools to execute a variety of pre-configured tests required to verify the functionality and performance of the application. Moreover, it enables performing regression tests at a higher speed with accuracy at scale.

QAs experienced in writing automation scripts find it easier to utilize test automation for their test projects. But in the desire to do more automated tests, QAs often tend to make mistakes that cost time, money, resources, and delay in project delivery. Although open-source automation tools like Selenium offer complete stability to automate test scripts, some mistakes still lead to automation failure.

In this article, we will talk about five pitfalls in automation testing that lead to automation failure. Besides, we will also discuss how you can avoid these pitfalls to get maximum test automation results.

Factors that Define the Success of Test Automation

To maintain a seamless CI/CD pipeline and release software products on the market frequently, test automation is your best bet. It allows businesses to enjoy a lot of benefits, such as:

• Quick time-to-market
• Optimized cost of operations
• Bug-free application
• High ROI
• Superior Customer Experience
• Frequent updates

Even after having these benefits, many companies still fail at test automation. It often happens due to misconceptions and pitfalls that most testers often overlook.

 Using Automation for the Entire Testing Process

To achieve maximum results, reduce testing time, or improve the product’s quality, most QAs use parallel testing on multiple servers to speed things up. But, running multiple tests at one time slows down the feedback loop, resulting in substantial time lags in shipping out the final product.

The best approach to avoid this issue is identifying what tests need to be automated instead of automating the entire testing scenarios. According to professional QAs, the tests that should be automated are:

• Functional tests
• Smoke tests
• Structural tests
• Cross browser testing
• Automation of test input generation
• Load & Performance tests
• Regression tests

Thus, QAs must avoid automating all the testing process. The significant role of automation testing is to achieve superior outcomes quickly and effectively. So, plan a useful strategy that justifies the need for test automation. Automating wrong or unnecessary scenarios of an application can land your team into more significant problems while delaying the product’s delivery.

Depending on Record & Playback for Scripts

Another major mistake that most testers make is using the record & playback feature to generate test scripts. The record & playback feature is provided to help you generate a skeletal script of the actual script, and it should be considered the final step in script creation. But, relying on record & playback scripts is the worst mistake that any tester can make. To execute automation testing effectively, you always need to customize the generated scripts.

You can easily avoid this issue by adding checkpoints for the validation of generated scripts. Besides, the record & playback feature should only be used to create the base script or train your automation engineer. You can even modularize the test scripts as per requirements to enable testers to work on it at one time.

Ignoring CI/CD Pipeline

Continuous integration and continuous delivery are two of the most critical test automation factors, which focus on speeding up the software release cycle. CI/CD allows QA teams to continually integrate minor code changes, test quickly, and making it available for end-users. Test automation plays an essential role in the CI/CD pipeline.

But, most teams are often don’t integrate test automation with the CI/CD pipeline, which means they don’t leverage the full potential of automated tools. Thus, it is crucial to create automated build acceptance, smoke, and regression test suites and integrate them with the CI/CD pipeline for quick delivery of the product to the market.

You can begin with one test check that runs end-to-end through the continuous integration server for every build. Later on, you can add other scripts one-by-one instead of automating the entire process at once.

Replacing Manual testing with Automation

If you think that you can replace manual testing with Automation to solve all your testing problems, then it’s your biggest misconception. The truth is that automated testing can never entirely replace manual testing. There are many scenarios of an application that need human intervention.

For example, to test the user interface, navigation, or small components of an application, you need manual testing. Even more, while testing an application, you must have a clear mindset of what to automate and what terms should be tested manually. For a better understanding of what to automate, you can check the first point in the article.

Choosing the Wrong Automation Tool

The most significant mistake that leads to test automation failure is choosing an automation tool that doesn’t comply with your requirements. Many factors lead to poor decision-making of tool selection, some of which includes:

• When the testing requirements are not analyzed thoroughly before choosing a tool
• If the test requirements are not laid properly
• The capability of the automation tool is not evaluated properly
• The process of using the automation tool is complicated for your team members
• Using a tool just because it is open-source

Avoiding the above factors might help you select an ideal automation tool for your testing processes. Its recommended that the QAs included in the testing process should evaluate the automation tool before making a decision.

There are numerous automation tools available in the market, and one tool might rarely meet all your needs. Moreover, if you’re on a budget, you also need to consider the automation tool’s price.

In our opinion, choosing a cloud-based automation tool like LambdaTest is an ideal choice for your test automation. Within a short span of time, you can run multiple unit, functional, regression, and performance tests of your application with a cloud-based testing tool. Apart from that, you can numerous parallel tests in a single instance to save time and resources.

Wrap Up

Test automation is not just a testing process; it has become necessary for the IT sector, as most companies rely on Automation for testing their web application and improving their time-to-market. But, failing automation tests often lead to restarting the entire process from beginning, resulting in more time and costs. Thus, avoiding any pitfalls leading to test automation failure is crucial for QA teams. Here, we pointed out five major pitfalls that result in test automation failure. Avoiding these pitfalls will help you execute automation testing successfully.