Automated Testing and Test Automation: Understanding The Differences

The latest trends in the IT industry reflect the importance of software testing of all the applications before launch and the skills needed to make it successful have made it a unique profession in the market. With the increased demand for varied software testing services, one thing that we should clearly understand is the differences between the various testing processes, without which it would be difficult to implement the best process to test your project. Here in this blog, I will discuss the stark differences between automation testing and test automation.

So, when we begin a discussion about continuous testing, the term ‘Automation’ comes around a lot and in a basic sense we understand that it is some kind of technology that is used repetitively to complete the testing process of a task.  To make it clear, in the testing world in particular, there are two types of automation:

• 1)- Test automation
• 2)- Automated testing

Though it might seem like two different ways of saying the same thing, but these terms actually have a different meaning altogether.

Automated testing: It can be defined as an act of conducting some specific tests via automation, which is opposed to manual testing as it increases the efficiency, effectiveness and also the coverage of software testing.

Test automation: On the other hand, test automation refers to automating the entire process of managing and keeping a track of the different types of tests

The approach before automation in testing:

Automation no doubt offers a great advantage and can complement manual testing for any program, project or company. But it is very important to continuously evaluate and counter balance both of them before any implementation. The decision is best driven by certain key factors:

1- The entire thought process should revolve round some questions that include: “How fast can I test the project? Will it be possible to increase its reach for better coverage?” and etc.

2- While implementing automation in testing, there are some preconceived notions like increase in costing, and this is what we need to unlearn.

3- Your target should be to start testing from the lowest possible level of your project.

4- Select an automation testing tool that can combat with sudden and irregular changes in the system and to overcome the boundaries of testing and development

5- Using specific techniques or tools that can help in data management, critical bug tracking, state manipulation and also log file parsing.

When is test automation a perfect fit?

Test automation is said to ease the testing process by automating the management and tracking of the testing needs of any particular project, which also includes the different types of tests covered and the types of testing that is required to cover all the parts. It helps to ensure that the team maintains a high standard of quality at all-time along the pipeline. This concept is simply perfect for the testers operating in a continuous testing environment.

What the testers need to verify:

1- Gather product requirements and details of the problem that the product owner is trying to sort

2- Break the requirements into incremental units of work to create functioning software

3- Write test cases in combination that includes automated, regression and explanatory to fulfil those requirements.

4- Running specific test cases for each phase and tracking the progress after each step is completed.

The emergence of various test management tools has helped the testing team to organize different facets of testing in a systematic manner and this has helped the entire testing and development team to avoid redundancy.