Testing frameworks are integral to any successful automation testing project. Test automation framework helps reduce maintenance costs and testing efforts, which contributes to a higher return on investment (ROI). Testing framework is especially for QA teams looking to optimize their agile processes.
This article walks you through the most popular test automation frameworks today as well as their benefits and drawbacks.
Before learning all the testing frameworks and their benefits, it’s essential to understand what a test automation framework actually is. A testing framework is a set of rules or guidelines for designing and developing test cases. It includes a set of practices and tools that help QA professionals test more effectively.
Coding standards, test-data handling techniques, object repositories, protocols for storing test results, and instructions on how to access external resources might all be included in these guidelines.
While these are not essential criteria, and testers can still write or record tests without them, adopting an organized framework often gives extra advantages that might otherwise be overlooked. Moreover, when it comes to a digital testing service, having a pre-built test automation framework will help you speed up the testing process and increase test coverage.
Using an automated testing framework will enhance a team's test speed and efficiency, improve test correctness, cut test maintenance costs, and lessen risks. They are necessary for a successful automated testing process over many reasons:
Six different types of test automation frameworks exist, each with its own architecture and set of pros and downsides. It's critical to select the framework that's ideal for you while creating a test strategy.
Behaviour-driven development (BDD) framework allows software testers to write test scripts in plain English, making them easily understandable even to individuals without technical expertise. The primary goal of BDD testing is to enhance collaboration between the technical and business sides.
Cucumber is a widely used tool for implementing the BDD framework, which utilizes Gherkin, a business-readable language, to describe system behaviors and scenarios. It follows a structured format consisting of 3 main statements: Given, When and Then. Each addresses a specific aspect of the system
BDD testers then transform the articulated system behavior in Gherkin into a test script that can be interpreted and executed by computers.
Advantages of BDD testing:
Drawbacks of BDD testing:
When using a modular framework, testers must break down the program under test into different components, functions, or sections, each of which must be tested separately. Following the decomposition of the application into discrete modules, each portion is given its own test script, which is then integrated to construct bigger tests in a hierarchical approach. These bigger groups of tests will start to reflect different test scenarios.
Building an abstraction layer so that changes made in specific portions do not effect the overall module is a crucial technique for adopting the modular architecture.
Advantages of Modular Frameworks:
Modular Framework Disadvantages:
The library architectural framework for automated testing is based on the modular framework, however it comes with a few more features. Rather of breaking down the program under test into the numerous scripts that must be performed, related jobs within the scripts are recognized and then grouped by function, resulting in the application being broken down into common objectives. These routines are stored in a library and may be used by the test scripts at any time.
Benefits of Library Architecture Testing Frameworks:
Disadvantages:
The test data is separated from the script logic when using a data-driven framework, allowing testers to store data elsewhere. Frequently, testers are faced with the task of testing the same feature or function of an application numerous times with various sets of data. It's vital in these cases that the test data isn't hard-coded in the script, as is the case with a Linear or Modular-based testing framework.
Setting up a data-driven test framework allows the tester to save and pass input/output parameters from an external data source, such as Excel spreadsheets, Text files, CSV files, SQL tables, or ODBC repositories, to test scripts.
The test scripts are linked to an external data source and instructed to read and populate the required data as needed.
Benefits of Data-Driven Frameworks:
Disadvantages
Each function of the application under test is written down in a table with a sequence of instructions in sequential order for each test that has to be conducted in a keyword-driven framework. The test data and script logic are separated in a keyword-driven framework in the same way as they are in a data-driven framework, but this method goes one step further.
Keywords are likewise maintained in an external data table (thus the name) using this technique, making them independent of the automated testing tool used to run the tests. Keywords are the parts of a script that represent the various activities taken to test an application's GUI. These can have simple labels like 'click' or 'login,' or more complicated labels like 'clicklink,' or'verifylink.'
Advantages of Keyword-Driven Frameworks:
Disadvantages:
Testers don't need to write code to build functions in a linear test automation framework, also known as a record-and-playback framework, and the steps are written in a sequential manner. The tester captures each step, such as navigation, user input, or checkpoints, and then conducts the test by automatically replaying the script.
Benefits of using a linear framework:
Disadvantages:
See more: How to choose Test Cases for Automation
Finding a technology that can rapidly and readily adapt to your processes is one advised strategy for building a hybrid framework for automated testing. You should search for a versatile automated testing solution that can support a wide range of apps and languages when selecting one.
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