A Beginner’s Guide to Frameworks for Automation of Testing

What is an Automation Framework

All software must be tested before it is made available to users but to quickly deploy reliable, efficient, and effective software, manual testing cannot be the primary approach. When implemented in your DevOps environment, automated software testing becomes indispensable.

Let’s start with some encyclopedic info for complete newbies: what is a test automation framework? An automation framework enables automated testing through a set of instructions or standards used for developing and designing test cases. The framework consists of procedures, object repositories, external resources and more.

Components of a Test Automation Framework

With a move away from manual software testing, QA specialists can test more effectively using an automation framework that is made up of a variety of tools to enable robust, and quicker development cycles. Different frameworks offer different features and functions but regardless, there are always two major components that will exist in an automation framework.

Test Data Management

The biggest issue with automated software testing is gathering data and extracting usable information. The availability of data to conduct testing is important and developers or testers can use plugins or functions to scour test data and extract relevant information for testing.

Testing Libraries

The management and execution of test cases forms the basis of an application’s testing procedure. To do testing successfully and efficiently, it is necessary to have well-defined and ordered test cases, which are stored in a testing library.

Types of Test Automation Frameworks

There are five popular test automation frameworks, each with a unique design and set of advantages and drawbacks.

Data-Driven Framework

When the same functionality must be tested numerous times with different sets of input data, the user can separate the logic of the test script from the test data. Test data is stored in external storage resources like databases and spreadsheets, and multiple data sets can be used to run different test cases. Because test data is unaffected by changes to test scripts, it enables faster test execution, and significant time savings.

Keyword-Driven Framework

Automating keyword-based testing aims to improve testing portability, minimize maintenance costs, increase script usability, and accomplish more with the same or less effort. Both high-level and low-level keywords, and keyword arguments, are used to explain the behavior of a test case. Every test activity, including opening/closing the browser, and mouse clicks, are described in this context by a keyword, such as ‘openbrowser’ and ‘click’.

Modular Testing Framework

Testers can break down the entire application into various logical, independent parts with test scripts written for each component that make up an application. The overall module is not affected by any changes made to the modules, and test scripts for other modules can be reused. A module cannot pass to the application testing procedure unless it has successfully completed the testing phase.

Linear Automation Framework

This kind of framework requires that each test case’s test script be written and executed on its own. The test is automatically run from the beginning, sequentially, by the tester, who notes each step, such as navigation, user input, or checkpoints. It is common to test small applications using this kind of framework and it is one of the fastest ways to generate test scripts without automation expertise. However, the scripts created with this framework can’t be reused. Choose one feature, create a script, and test it. The primary benefit of a linear automation system is a quick workflow.

Hybrid Frameworks

It is also common for DevOps to overcome the shortcomings of several test frameworks by using a hybrid test framework. It can offer versatility by fusing elements of many frameworks to maximize the benefits and effectiveness of automated testing.

Why Do We Need Frameworks?

There are many advantages of using frameworks for test automation that include improved organization through centralization of test scripts and artifacts. Frameworks for automation make test maintenance uncomplicated and reduce development work to scale testing capabilities. These reasons and more are why frameworks are now an essential part of contemporary DevOps because they also help to improve test accuracy and speed up development lifecycles.

How to Choose a Framework?

Knowing which testing framework is best for you can be overwhelming given the variety available. It is important to first consider the fundamentals of your testing process before attempting to determine which testing framework will work best for you:

Selenium WebDriver

Selenium has been around for a while in the automation world. This free automation tool makes it simple to automate tests for contemporary web apps. It is one of the most popular tools for performing cross-browser testing within the Selenium framework.

Appium

Appium is another open-source test automation framework, which supports native mobile application automation. Numerous computer languages, including Java, Ruby, C#, PHP, and Python, are supported by Appium testing.

Robot Framework

This open-source automation framework can be utilized for robotic process automation and test automation. Virtually any other tool can be combined with Robot Framework to create robust and adaptable automation systems. It uses keywords that are easy to understand and has a simple syntax.

pytest

An open-source Python testing framework called Pytest is particularly useful for functional and API testing. Users can write scalable test cases for databases, APIs, or interfaces using the Python programming language. Pytest is mostly employed for creating API tests.

Cucumber

Cucumber works with behavior-driven development and testing, but it cannot be used solely to create a framework. It is a commonly used tool because it can be integrated with various frameworks. The implementation is written in a step definition file, and the tests are written in Gherkin, a language for Cucumber test cases.

Cypress

Cypress’s broad feature set has made it immensely popular as a test automation tool with helpful features including simple setup, debugging, and a specific Cypress window for performing tests. It does have some several limitations that may require programming intervention.

NUnit

For writing and running tests in Microsoft.NET programming languages, NUnit is a growing, open-source framework. Test-driven development (TDD), which is a subset of the larger Extreme Programming software design paradigm, includes NUnit and JUnit (XP).

WebDriverIO

The WebDriverIO Logo framework has been around for a while. Due to its internal use of Selenium libraries, WebDriverIO is somewhat comparable to Selenium with JavaScript. It is a component of the OpenJS foundation and utilizes the WebDriver implementation, so all major browsers are supported.

Mocha

Mocha has versatility although it does not have a mocking framework or assertion library. This implies that any library or framework can be chosen. Asynchronous testing is made easy with the feature-rich JavaScript test framework Mocha, which runs on Node.js and in the browser.

Serenity

With Serenity BDD, you can create automated acceptance and regression tests more quickly and in a cleaner, more maintainable manner. Serenity uses the test results to create illustrative narrative reports that detail the functions and features of your application.

Final Thoughts

Testing is one of the most important phases in the software development process, which is why automation test frameworks are the way to go if you want to improve your software quality and increase test accuracy.

Building a hybrid framework may also fit as a strategy, as long as the framework or frameworks can quickly and easily adapt to your operations. Explore flexible automated testing solutions that can support a variety of applications and languages, and allow every member of your team, regardless of experience level or skill set, to participate in your testing efforts.