Automated Testing Software for web and mobile: some features you would need

It’s a known fact that automation testing is extremely crucial in maintaining software quality. Mobile applications and websites are a genuinely dynamic landscape with several new enhancements and advancements happening every day.

To secure their quality and to help you deliver delightful experiences to your users and ones that’ll keep your users engaged with your products — testing is essential.

While well-planned automation testing can lead to an optimized development effort, an ill-planned one can easily eat up a large part of your development effort. 

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For a successful implementation of test automation that offers the flexibility of testing both mobile apps and websites simultaneously — the right tool makes all the difference.

Automated testing software can help you execute test cases swiftly and efficiently; from regression testing to offering a wider test coverage — you can achieve plenty with the right tool.

In this post, let’s discuss what are some of the must-have features in an automated testing tool for both web and mobile.

Features Worth Considering While Choosing an Automated Testing Software for Web & Mobile

1. Go for a low maintenance tool to reduce costs and efforts: What hinders most businesses from adopting automation testing software is the maintenance costs. From learning and upgrading to staffing and infrastructure — there are plenty of costs involved.

But here’s the thing: some automation testing tools are low on maintenance, and while the setup is expensive, the ROI is high. Allow us to explain. Software providers handle maintenance and upgrades on their own; this means you can focus on testing and shipping efficient products. 

If you can manage infrastructure costs that include devices, machines, storage, etc., you can go for traditional software. But if you’re a startup or don’t have the budget for in-house infrastructure, we recommend going for a cloud-based testing tool.

With a cloud-based testing tool, everything is virtual; you’ll save up a lot of costs. Besides, the cloud is up and running 24×7, and you can automate or schedule tests at any time.

No additional setup or configuration is required. So, always try a few tools by accessing their free trials to understand their maintenance costs and how seamlessly they can fit into your project requirements.

2. Scriptless testing to simplify the ease of testing: First things first — testers aren’t programmers. This means they should not have to learn to code and upskill themselves to use automated testing software.

If you think about it, this isn’t just time-taking but also impractical. The other reason why you may want to consider scriptless testing: if your team is embracing agile and DevOps culture, speed is of the essence.

Scriptless testing tools accelerate testing because testers can write scripts in simple English faster. For instance, with Testsigma, you can write test cases 5x faster, that’s half the battle won!

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Owing to the AI and NLP capabilities, these tools don’t just simplify your ease of testing but also auto-heal areas of concern, including flakiness. With codeless testing, you can write your test cases in simple English.

In fact, Testsigma comes with inbuilt loops, conditional structures, etc., which further simplify even the most complex test cases. And whether you’re a beginner or an experienced tester — you can focus on increasing the test efficiency rather than picking and learning new technologies.

So, if you’re moving to agile or DevOps, you may want to give scriptless testing a shot.

3. Testing on real devices for accurate results: Your users consume your products on real devices; battery levels, poor WiFi, outdated software, and several other factors affect the performance of the app or website.

In most cases, emulators aren’t enough unless you’re testing the UI and if your product uses maps or a camera — you’ve got to test on real devices. 

The automated testing software you use should either offer real devices or let you connect with any online device labs. Apart from giving you the flexibility to test on real devices and interact with your product like an end-user, real devices are cost-effective too.

You don’t have to constantly buy or upgrade your existing devices; plus, you’ll save up on infrastructure costs.

4. Parallel test execution for faster time to market: With more and more teams adopting a continuous development and delivery approach, parallel test execution is of immense value.

Imagine how long it would take to run your tests on one machine and wait for them to finish to run others. That’s a painful task, and with parallel test execution, you can test various modules or elements on multiple environments, thereby gaining maximum test coverage with shortened execution time! 

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With parallel test execution, you can also cut down your feedback cycles and deliver faster. 

5. Platform-agnostic tool to test on various platforms: If an automated testing software doesn’t support testing various platforms from one place, it can be time-consuming and expensive to invest in more than one tool.

An ideal software will support testing web, mobile (iOS and Android), API, and hybrid apps. If your app is compatible across various platforms, then you should look for a tool that lets you automate your tests from the same place.

Do note that most platform-agnostic tools will also let you reuse your code within various projects. It’s time-saving and a sustainable form of testing that you can adopt.

6. Regression testing to cut down redundancies: In all honesty, no tester enjoys regression testing, and if you’re able to automate regression tests, all testers can focus on more important things.

Because regression testing is so repetitive and redundant, ensure you pick a tool that significantly cuts down regression efforts. And while it’s time-consuming, it’s also vital as it helps identify bugs, crashes, errors, etc., that any elements may cause.

In fact, as per Practitest‘s survey, 78% of organizations globally use automation testing for regression. 

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With Testsigma, you can craft end-to-end regression tests for your web and app in simple English. You can also schedule tests based on your priority. This tool also lets you trigger regression tests with every new build or code merge for smooth production.

7. Integrations for end-to-end testing within the ecosystem: A tool that doesn’t support integrations can slow down development. For instance, imagine being an agile development team but without the right tools of the trade at your disposal.

The development and testing won’t just be half-baked but also not agile. An automated testing tool that supports integrations is the need of the hour.

For agile teams that work with Bamboo, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, or any CI/CD integration tool — we recommend you choose an automated testing software that easily integrates into your CI/CD pipeline.

The other integrations that you should prioritize include project management tools, communication tools, bug management, test management tools, test-case libraries, object repositories, etc.

These integrations make your life easier and don’t require additional set-ups or configurations.

8. Test reusability for a shorter time-to-market: Automated testing software that supports test reusability can help maximize your ROI, and it’s a sustainable testing approach.

With test reusability, you can reuse common steps, shared functionalities, test cases, or snippets at several stages of testing, including test case generation, execution, test case review, etc.

Besides, several codeless automated testing tools support reusing test steps across projects and within various platforms. These tools are capable enough to prioritize test case reusability and recommend or automatically maintain and update test cases to reduce manual efforts. You can significantly cut downtime with this feature.

9. 24×7 support or community support can go a long way: If you’re new to the tool or stuck somewhere and require guidance, you either require a highly active and responsive community or promptly available support.

Providers that offer customer support via email or forms often take a lot of time to get back. As a paying customer, you’ve got to look for a provider that offers 24×7 customer support.

Apart from prioritizing your requests, they should also be able to help you with training or any form of assistance. We recommend going through the software provider’s website to understand their support terms before picking it.

Final words

By now, you must have understood the important features that can make an automated testing tool a maximum valuable player. Our automated testing software — Testsigma is great for automating web and mobile apps. It’s cloud-based and comes with 1000s of real devices with various combinations of OS and browsers.

It supports parallel testing and is collaborative in a real sense; since it’s cloud-based, remote teams can access it from anywhere. But not just that, your clients can also review your code and project using Testsigma.

Testsigma comes with AI capabilities that handle at least 70% of your test management. From fixing flakiness to suggesting which tests should be executed — this comes in handy.

Plus, it’s a codeless testing tool that lets you write your test cases in English. It supports cross-browser and cross-device testing along with the mobile app and API testing. Sounds like something you’d love to try out?

Testsigma is giving away a 30-day free trial for you to check the tool out. Sign up here.