Selenium Testing: Tips for Beginners

QA automation with Selenium remains among the top choices for many QA services. While this tool is intended for web applications only, this specification just means that Selenium is well-tailored for web testing. And if you are not yet that personal with this automation giant, here are some basics and tips for you to get more comfortable with it.

Types of Selenium Automation Testing

Selenium lets you automate a wide range of tests. Although it does have its limits, you can still enjoy its versatility and flexibility.

Functional Testing

With Selenium, you can automate related tests by writing scripts that simulate user-app interactions, e.g., clicking buttons, filling out forms, navigating between pages, etc. And integrating Selenium with other software, say TestNG or JUnit, will help produce comprehensive reports.

Regression Testing

Selenium lets you automate regression tests by reusing functional test scripts, making it easy to look for ‘tears’ in the application when modifying the software.

Cross-Browser Testing

Selenium can turn your scripts into automated tests that can be run on multiple web browsers, like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. And with Selenium Grid, you can run tests simultaneously by setting up numerous virtual environments.

Performance Testing

After designing respective scripts, you can apply Selenium to simulate the desired traffic on your web application and apprise its load-handling capabilities.

Security Testing

Selenium can simulate common security threats, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting, allowing you to promptly determine potential weak points. Interestingly, a study by ACM found that the most common security vulnerabilities can be located using automated Selenium software testing.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg. With Selenium QA, you can also automate many other tests:
UI testing.

• Integration testing.
• Accessibility testing.
• Integration testing.
• Compatibility testing and more.

Selenium’s automation potential is essentially endless. You just need to be sure that you use the right tool to leverage its powers.

Selenium Testing for Complete Beginners

Advanced Features for Selenium QA

Selenium might have a steep learning curve. But once you master the essentials and grasp more advanced features, your automation expertise will double. Here are a few more complex aspects to pay attention to.

Locators in Selenium

Selenium offers several ways of locating elements on a web page, e.g., using their ID, name, class tag, CSS selector, and XPath. With the abundance of options, it is important to choose the right locator strategy. Be sure to study the structure of the web page and the element you are trying to locate before committing to a particular locator. Generally, it is best to use ID or name, as these locators are the most efficient and reliable.

Synchronization in Selenium

Web applications often load elements dynamically. Meaning that you need to wait for an element to load before interacting with it. Selenium provides multiple synchronization methods, including implicit and explicit waits. These features can be used to wait for specific elements to be loaded, thus making sure that the application and code execution are in sync.

Integration with TestNG and JUnit

TestNG and JUnit are among most popular testing frameworks that cooperate with Selenium, especially when it comes to reporting. TestNG provides advanced features, e.g., data-driven testing and parallel test execution, which are most useful for large and complex test suites. JUnit, on the other hand, is a simpler testing framework with basic testing functionality and a friendly learning curve.

Debugging with Selenium

Selenium provides a few tools and techniques for script debugging: session logging, screenshots, and breakpoints. For example, you can use breakpoints in your code, inspect elements using the developer tools in your browser, and log messages to the console to help diagnose issues. You can select what works best for you and effectively prevent and fix run-time errors.

Best Practices for Selenium Testing

The quality of your test scripts determines the quality of the outcomes. So, to enhance productivity when testing with Selenium, you should take note of the following:

• Write clean and readable code. It makes it much easier to maintain test scripts and diagnose issues.
• Write modular and reusable code. It allows you to reuse code across multiple test scripts, thus saving time and effort.
• Use Page Object Model (POM). As a design pattern, POM provides a structure for your test scripts and makes it easier to maintain and scale them.
• Use descriptive and meaningful test names. In this way, you can quickly grasp the purpose of each test and efficiently diagnose errors.

Selenium is a common addition to any QA company’s toolkit due to its flexibility. What it lacks in some areas is compensated with extra integrations or add-ons. So by compromising on being a generalist tool, Selenium keeps its features best adapted to web app testing.

Tips for Better Selenium QA Testing

To get the most out of Selenium testing, you might need a few months of practice. While nothing can replace own hard-earned expertise, here are some tips to get you started.

Functional Testing

1. Using the POM pattern allows you to create separate classes for each page in the web application and encapsulate the elements/actions for that page within that class. So you can better organize your test code and make it more maintainable.
2. When writing tests intended to validate the app’s behavior, take on the user’s perspective. This means focusing on verifying that the displayed information, performed actions, and error messages work correctly (which is most important to the user).
3. Instances where a particular element is not loaded, i.e., cannot be interacted with, can lead to test failure. Applying the Wait commands in Selenium ensures that your tests wait for each component to load before interacting with them.

Regression Testing

1. TestNG framework is great for running your regression tests in parallel. This Selenium integration can save time and increase the tests’ processing speed.
2. Structuring test suites for regression tests makes it easier to execute specific sets of tests.
3. Make use of data-driven testing techniques to run regression testing with multiple sets of data. With this method, you can validate the web application against a wide range of scenarios.

Cross-Browser Testing

1. To reduce testing time, use the Selenium Grid to run your cross-browser tests in parallel on different web browsers.
2. The DesiredCapabilities class in Selenium lets you specify the web browser and version you want to run the tests on.
3. Capitalize on writing browser-agnostic tests. With this approach, you can execute the tests on any web browser without modification.

Performance Testing

1. Integrate Apache JMeter or Gatling with Selenium to automate performance testing. These tools can simulate heavy loads on your web app and measure its performance.
2. To measure the performance of your Selenium tests, use the Selenium Profiler. It will also help you identify areas for improvement accurately.
3. Write tests with performance optimization in mind. Here, thinking ahead permits you to run the tests quickly and with reduced resource consumption.

Security Testing

1. You can use the OWASP ZAP tool together with Selenium to automate security testing. While OWASP ZAP can simulate common security threats and test the app’s cyber resilience, Selenium can automate the testing process.
2. The Selenium Proxy class helps intercept requests and responses between your web application and the browser, allowing to identify potential security vulnerabilities.
3. Similar to performance testing, you should design security tests from a user’s POV. This way, you can verify that the web application is protected from potential attacks on the user side.

To Sum Up

There is no denying that Selenium is very popular among test automation services. So when you become a Selenium expert, you grow professionally and acquire vast job opportunities. It may not be as easy as you want it to be, but most great things are rather difficult to achieve. But when you direct your effort, you can be sure of positive results. Selenium is not Carbon after all 😜

Good luck, and keep learning.