Best Practices For Selenium Automation Testing

With constant progress in digital technologies, web applications are becoming increasingly complex. This alters to new challenges for QA engineers as they require to perform comprehensive testing of new characteristics across platforms.

Bear in mind that giving a flawless user experience is necessary for any website to succeed in the current-day competitive landscape.

Reliable and organized open-source tools like Selenium have made it possible for QA engineers to reduce manual testing. They also allow the execution of comprehensive tests faster. However, to get effective outcomes from Selenium tests, one must be well acquainted with the appropriate best practices.

This article will highlight some of these best practices that will help QAs improve their Selenium tests.

6 Best Practices to Consider For Selenium Automation

1. Using the Right Locators

For testing the desired web elements of a particular application, QAs require to be proficient in employing different locator strategies. After all, if the test scripts cannot recognize the accurate elements, the tests will fail.

Example: For automating inputs to the Username and Password fields of a login page, the first step is to locate those text fields. If the script cannot locate the Username and Password fields, the login process will not run.

2. Implementing Page Object Model

With ever-increasing customer requirements, a website’s UI is forced to develop after including new changes at regular intervals. Needless to say, locators corresponding to particular UI elements change too. This indicates QAs require to generate new test cases for the same page again, which can be tiresome.

One can approach this by using the Page Object Model design pattern for generating test scripts. In this design pattern, each web page is regarded as a class file, and every class file provides corresponding web elements. This method helps reduce code duplication and also makes test maintenance more convenient. QAs can also reuse the existing code and make minimal modifications.

3. Incorporating Wait Commands

Web browsers take some time to load individual web pages. The page load speed is subjective to network conditions, server issues, or system configurations. To deal with this, QAs often utilize the Thread.sleep() method, which halts the automation script for a particular amount of time.

However, this is not the most effective method. In some cases, a website may take longer to load than the defined time. On the other hand, a website may load faster than the specified time, appearing in slower test execution. A better, more effective alternative is to apply Implicit or Explicit Wait Commands in Selenium.

4. Planning and Designing Test Cases beforehand

QA teams must have a proper test plan in place before getting started with automation. QA engineers must consider all logical situations and produce extensive test cases from the end-user’s perspective. Jumping straight into automation without a strong approach usually leads to bottlenecks in the later stages.

Often, QAs concentrate more on checking whether the scripts work successfully rather than preparing for extensive test situations. This procedure is ineffective for assuring full-proof testing of web applications.

5. Identifying and Prioritizing Test Cases

Testing complex web applications can be challenging at times. Prioritizing some test cases over others makes it simpler to accomplish test coverage goals. QAs must have certainty on which test cases are critical and require to be performed on priority.

Example: A login page is a necessary part of any web application. Generally, automating tests to check the login page makes sense. This is because the login page seldom undergoes any changes but allows an important function. Thus, testing it would be simple, and running the tests would incorporate a high-priority task in the pipeline early on.

6. Running Selenium Tests on Real Devices

Although there are various emulators available on the internet for Selenium testing over platforms, driving tests on real devices creates a considerable difference.

Emulators are simply software programs that simulate the functionality of a device. They are more suitable for testing code changes in the beginning stages of development. Besides, emulators for each device-OS combination may not be possible, which makes it even more challenging for QAs to test on required combinations.

Actual results can only be expected when websites are tested in real user situations. This enables teams to identify maximum defects and eventually roll out a robust application.

Also Read: Misconceptions Of The Automated Testing Busted

Conclusion

Selenium automation attempts to decrease manual testing efforts, enhance execution speed, and recognize the maximum number of defects at the earliest. However, in order to gain the most out of their Selenium scripts, QAs must understand the selenium best practices highlighted above. This will also benefit in fixing a reliable test cycle.

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