Test Automation Problems (4) – Implementation Approach

Posted by Albert Gareev on Aug 10, 2009 | Categories: Problems

Framework

There are 3 most popular approaches in implementation of Test Automation, and none of them isn’t ideally suitable for any environment.

1) Linear scripts

A single test case could be automated fairly quickly (especially using recording) but robustness without error-handling is very questionable
GUI mapping is automatically performed by a Tool on the fly but duplication is very high, reusability not possible, and maintenance is expensive
Due to a lack of structure at the Test Suite level there is a high duplication rate of the code and minimal reusability is possible (except of copy/paste but this is even worse) – so the maintenance cost is very high and there is a high chance that Test Suite won’t be functioning on time after the application is updated
Built-in reporting isn’t friendly enough to use it as transferable Test Results
Essentially the script is data-entry and comparison only, so validation has to be done manually – by going through all the test results
Test scripts preparation, (update and debugging before) execution, and validation may take more time then just manual execution of the same test cases

2) Data-Driven Framework

Library-based structure provides good usability and reusability but quality of the test scripts strongly depends on the programming skills and experience of implementing person
Verification can be quickly implemented with checkpoints but checkpoint data maintenance is very time consuming
The test logic is coded with the programming language so the more test scripts is created the higher is maintenance cost

3) Keyword-Driven Framework

Requires initial investment for design and implementation of the Framework as well as requires a seasoned automation professional to implement it
Implementation approach may still vary. There are successful and unsuccessful concepts of keyword-driven automation. A special attention should be paid on the meta-language usability for non-programming users