As automation testing becomes more and more popular, more businesses are trying to include it into their software development lifecycle. Automation, though, can be difficult to get right even if it can speed up the testing process and increase coverage.
In this blog article, we’ll talk about some of the most typical problems that testers run across while implementing test automation and propose solutions.
What is Selenium?
The well-known open-source Selenium test automation tool or platform provides a foundation on top of which software testing experts may create and run automated test scripts. Moreover, Selenium has a user interface that enables the creation of test scripts in a number of well-known programming languages, including Ruby, Node JS, Python, Java, C#, PHP, etc.
What is Selenium Used for?
Selenium testing enables businesses to verify web applications’ compatibility and functioning across a range of browsers. Selenium is a group of software tools that each cater to specific QA testing requirements of a business for various technological implementations.
With Selenium, you may create test scripts in the programming language of your choice. It then makes it possible for it to be executed on a browser instance in any desired device, such as a smartphone, tablet PC, or real PC. This enables testing teams to save many hours of testing time that would have been required if they had to manually check every module of an application in an actual run-time environment apart from the development ecosystem.
Commonest Selenium Challenges
- Flakiness
- Limited Reporting
- Dynamic Content
- Mobile Testing
- Pop-up Windows
- Scalability Issues
- Validating Dynamic Runtime Elements
Flakiness
Selenium occasionally offers shaky tests, which could make results appear positive or negative when they are fact the opposite. Testers might eventually decide to ignore the results if there are too many faulty tests, which isn’t a great answer either. Timeouts, unreliable external services, and insufficient test isolation are frequently the cause of unstable builds. By examining the Selenium test components, you can more easily ascertain the cause of your unstable builds and take immediate action.
Limited Reporting
Selenium will considerably improve your automated testing skills, however as it’s an open-source tool, it offers few features and fewer reporting support. A third-party tool like CrossBrowserTesting, which can snapshot browsers and deliver reports via connectors with Slack and HipChat, is the best complement to Selenium-based testing for this purpose. But you can also set up a framework, like TestNG, to create an output folder with report information after a test, including problems, execution duration, pass/fail count, etc.
Dynamic Content
When you visit a website with dynamic loading, certain elements might not be immediately obvious. This could imply that the website’s content is user-specific and varies based on the user, that new content appears after a certain amount of time has elapsed, or that new content appears once a user clicks a certain element on the page. For scenarios where a locator is unable to recognize a new element present at that precise moment, Selenium WebDriver has an integrated Explicit Wait feature that allows you to specify a time to wait before automating an operation. This should speed up page loading and make it clearer which element has to be clicked.
Mobile Testing
Selenium WebDriver can run tests on any browser and operating system on a desktop computer, but because it cannot run on native operating systems like iOS and Android, it has some restrictions when used for mobile testing. For instance, Selenium can test Facebook when it opens on Safari on a Mac, but not when it opens in Safari on an iPhone 7. There is a cure in the selenium family. Its cousin, Appium, is an open-source test automation framework that powers native, mobile, and hybrid iOS and Android apps using the WebDriver interface. Instead of testing web applications, mobile apps can be tested with Appium.
Pop-up Windows
Automating a straightforward, prompt, or confirmation alert to accept or close might be difficult. Furthermore, because Windows-based alerts are an operating system feature rather than a browser feature, Selenium cannot test them. But since Selenium WebDriver can handle multiple windows, web-based alerts can often be managed with the switch to function to control the pop-up while keeping the browser in the background.
Selenium is a web-based automation tool that is offered without charge. Python is used to run Selenium tests. It is much easier and less verbose than other programming languages. You may interact with the browser using Selenium thanks to the Python APIs.
Scalability Issues
The testing landscape’s scope and coverage expand along with the application’s usage and feature expansion. With Selenium, you can run test builds sequentially across many environments. But if the application size grows, it could not be particularly efficient. Only when testers are able to perform more tests and cover all potential scenarios will the software testing stage be effectively automated. As a result, scaling problems may eventually affect the overall test quality.
Validating Dynamic Runtime Elements
Most websites today use security precautions like captcha to stop unauthorized bot attacks on distinct portions of the webpage. Only when they have figured out the captcha may end users access them. Additionally, there may be operating system-related pop-up messages and notifications that the Selenium testing environment has very little control over. Since Selenium doesn’t come equipped with a captcha-solving intelligence out of the box, testing can become difficult as a result. Furthermore, it is unable to manage OS-related pop-up activities.
Conclusion
For quite some time, automation tools have existed. They have made repeated processes that might otherwise be time-consuming, tiresome, or just plain dull, easier for developers and testers to automate. To meet the demands of modern software development teams, automation is always growing, as is the case with all things digital. People who use these tools are facing new difficulties, such as Selenium WebDriver’s limits and the difficult technical debt brought on by test automation, but they are also opening up new possibilities for development.
