The best method of increasing product quality is through trial and error. Who would risk showing the product openly to the public without testing it internally first?
However, as technology evolves and developed products become more complex, it’s not always easy to implement manual testing. Therefore, here comes a new method, automated testing, and it rocks the industry with numerous benefits for the business.
Are you still for the old kind of manual testing? We guess you still are, which is not always bad.
However, we sincerely want you also to express the benefits of testing automation. And let us tell you, once you try it, you will stand for it forever.
Well, we know you’re intrigued (at least we hope so). So, let’s not make you wait any longer and list the key benefits of automation testing for your business and its main types.
What is automation testing?
Automated testing is the set of pre-defined activities, which you can run unlimited times on the testing product. The computerized testing software runs the pre-recorded actions on the product which should be tested. Then it compares the received results with the ideal behavior expected to receive and reports the comparison results to managers.
Main types of automation testing
- Unit testing works with independent units, or the smallest pieces of code, without testing the interactions between the units.
- Functional testing takes input and tries to receive the desired output, testing the product’s functionality.
- Regression testing tries to identify how the addition of new features impacts the overall capacity of the product.
- Smoke testing is conducted as a quick verification test before actual testing.
- Integration testing helps identify whether external systems like databases or API can successfully integrate and work with the test product.
The top 4 benefits of automation testing
- Receive faster feedback
It’s pretty obvious that testing the draft product manually will take significantly more time than running automation testing software on it. Therefore, one of the key benefits of automated testing is receiving feedback sooner. There is always a lack of time, so the sooner you have the testing results, the better.
This is extremely important if you want to optimize your team’s efforts and work on all the bugs in the early development phase. Due to the speed and efficiency, it’s possible to run automated testing after each major development phase and identify product issues before moving on to the next step.
- Cut on testing costs
You might think that acquiring automated testing software will cost you significantly more than testing it manually. However, that’s a myth. Spending much time and paying the salary of testers costs times higher in the long run than a one-time investment in automated software.
So, if you don’t want to limit your testing opportunities because of the limited budget, switch to testing automation. It will save both time and financial resources for your company.
- Have higher accuracy of results
Running the same pre-recorded testing scenario gives more accurate testing results than doing it once and manually. Manual testing is highly vulnerable to human error. Besides, the subjective thinking of the tester might negatively affect the overall quality of the testing feedback. On the contrary, you can be times more secure with testing automation in place.
- More opportunities for the QA team
Manual testing takes the most of many QA teams. If the QA team is relatively free of manual testing, they can conduct activities that add more value to the company. As the most basic example, the team will have more time on product improvement suggestions. Therefore this innovation will positively affect the team performance and overall motivation.
Final thoughts
As you’ve read about the key benefits that automation testing brings to your business, we guess you do not doubt that your business needs it right away. However, it is worth noting that machines can never be as effective as human judgment, so the final say should be real users.
That’s why there is a popular type of testing called black-box testing. It is hard to automate; however, it’s essential to implement if you want a complete and thorough overview of your testing product performance.
During the black box testing, users who are completely unfamiliar with the product should use it to get the desired outcome. They do not have any product documentation or information on how it works.
As you might guess, this type of testing reveals the product’s actual effectiveness for the end-users, who will use the product for the first time. Ideally, both the automated and black box testing results should possibly be high to proceed with the launch of your product.
