It is one of the crucial decisions to make while the software testing process. One of the most important choices you make for automation testing is the choice of the appropriate functional testing tool. You might miss certain undiscovered issues because every functional testing tool has specific restrictions.

You have a set of selection restrictions when choosing a tool, and these limitations can be divided into hard and soft constraints. Hard limitations are rigid and must always be met. These limitations include the platforms, programming languages, execution environments, and frameworks used to create the application. Cost, maintainability, usability, scheduling, level of programming, and technical skill requirements are some examples of soft constraints. These limitations may be partially or completely waived.

Based on the needs of the project, you must balance these limits while choosing the automated testing tool. Hire automated testers to meet all the requirements with a single functional testing tool.

Let’s start with the details of functional testing tools.

What Is Functional Testing?

Functional testing is a quality assurance method that determines whether a system complies with specific functional requirements. It is a form of “black-box” testing where functions are examined based just on their input and output, disregarding the internal organization of the program. Usually, it explains how the system operates. Hire dedicated QA engineers to carry out the testing. The developers create the scripts to check that the app’s small parts function in accordance with the specifications.

So, what is the functional automation tool list that the developers use? Let’s find out first why functional testing tools are needed.

What Are the Benefits of Using Functional Testing Tools?

You must keep in mind the benefits of software quality assurance functional testing in order to understand the efficacy of functional testing:

• Functional testing ensures that software functions properly for end users or commercial clients, preventing bugs and inconsistencies.
• During functional testing, the program identifies and corrects errors and faults to ensure smooth functionality and plug security holes, creating a defect-free final product.
• Functional testing identifies problems with an application’s functionality and makes sure that testers’ recommendations are followed by developers to guarantee proper performance.
• The characteristics of functional testing tools features evaluate software security, ensuring application security for the storage of sensitive user data, and ultimately delivering a conclusive result.

So what are the top functional automation tools list? Let’s check them in our next section.

Top 10 Functional Testing Tools in 2023

1. UFT Testing Tool

A well-known commercial functional testing tool is called UFT, or Unified Functional Testing. It offers a full feature set for cross-platform API, web services, and GUI testing of desktop, web, and mobile apps. The tool has reusable test components, automatic documentation, and powerful image-based object recognition features. Because it is a commercial tool, licensing costs make automation testing expensive.

2. Selenium

Selenium was initially merely a framework for testing automated browser interactions. Now, when developers use the term Selenium, they may be referring to the WebDriver (which supports Java, Python, Ruby, C#, JavaScript, Perl, and PHP programming languages) or the original testing framework.

Additionally, Selenium IDE has a record-and-playback functionality that enables you to do extremely simple functional tests without writing any code. These Selenium variants are all capable of cross-browser testing.

3. Appium

An open-source test automation tool called Appium supports desktop, mobile web, hybrid, and native apps. Appium has developed into a full platform with a wide range of automation features from its origins as a framework for iOS and Android mobile applications. With its WebDriver-based protocol, which supports a range of mobile and desktop platforms, developers can easily automate their apps. With its flawless features and cross-platform compatibility, Appium is a strong and effective test automation solution.

4. Sapon UI

SmartBear also supports SoapUI, however, SoapUI is more focused on Web services testing. You have a choice between upgrading to a subscription plan, which offers more integrations and back-end services or choosing the open-source version, which lets you create tests from a single device.

5. Swagger

User-friendly and simple to use, customization options, open-source and freely downloadable; readily implementable in.Net; lively and active community; and cost-free are some of the benefits of Swagger. Whereas the disadvantages of Swagger are limited support for code reuse, inclusions, or extensions, development, and QA tools need several specifications. It also requires schemas for all replies and lacks powerful developer tools.

6. Katalon Studio

Free Functional Test Automation IDE Katalon Studio is made for quick and effective testing. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac and offers testing for web, mobile, and APIs. For integrated software automation, Selenium and Appium, the top two testing frameworks, are utilized. Writing automated test cases is simple and does not require extensive programming experience.

It examines the problem of open-source test automation frameworks not being integrated specifically.

Some of its features are that it supports the languages Groovy and Java. It has built-in templates for maintaining object repositories, test cases, and custom keywords. Also provides Jenkins, qTest, Git, and Jira integration and the option to record and replay. Free software is created by KMS technology and it is appropriate for automating web applications, and mobile applications.

7. Marathon Testing

A cross-platform framework for test automation for Java/Swin, Java/FX, and Web applications is called Marathon. Through scripts, it provides test automation. Ruby has an internal script recorder that allows you to construct understandable scripts. In order to manage test automation projects, it offers a strong integrated environment. Marathon and MarathonITE are two goods.

Marathon and MarathonITE can be used for simple or huge applications with up to 10 screens each. The sophisticated features offered by MarathonITE include data-driven testing, extract-method refactoring, and object map maintenance.

8. Postman

Postman is a superb API platform that makes it simple to create and use APIs while increasing productivity and speeding up development procedures. Because of its user-friendly UI and robust functionality, developers can produce better APIs quickly and accurately. Small teams and independent developers can use San Francisco-based Postman’s flagship product for free. Comprehensive API administration, team collaboration, extra support, and other advanced capabilities are offered by Postman Pro and enterprise levels. The way developers construct and manage APIs can be completely transformed by Postman.

Features:

• Support for GraphQL is built-in Excellent documentation abilities
• Functionality testing for regression
• Comprehensive amount of knowledge
• Collaboration tools
• Better control over the workflow
• Libraries already installed

9. Rapise

The offers a novel form of testing called Learn and Go that uses substantially less time than conventional record-and-playback procedures. Rapise has robust built-in support for every environment, including Java, Google Web Toolkit, and web applications with AJAX, among others. With Rapise, you can test all of these technologies in the same environment. Additionally, it supports Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome.

10. TestDrive

The Automated Software Quality (ASQ) solution TestDrive covers the need for quick automation. It is made to test GUIs like Java(tm), Ajax, Flex, and Silverlight(r), as well as web and legacy applications. Users can execute pre-existing scripts over upgraded versions of the application thanks to its innovative self-healing script mechanism. In accordance with predetermined criteria, these scripts will update to reflect changes.

How to Choose the Best Functional Testing Tool for Your Automation?

It’s crucial to make a list of criteria before choosing the functional testing solution to allow for better evaluation. The selection of a tool frequently depends on subpar criteria. So which are the appropriate ones? Here are some important factors that will enable you to choose the most appropriate functional testing instrument.

1. Programming Language and Development Environment

There are two ways to use programming languages while working with automation technologies. Use programming languages that are simple to learn, like Ruby and Python, or create your own programming language.

When the commit fails during a Continuous Integration run and the test is written in the same language as the production code, programmers must correct the fault.

2. Tags & Supported Platforms

Ascertain that the tool is compatible with all the platforms and levels that the team offers (web, mobile web, iOS native, Android native). If it doesn’t support the majority of popular platforms, the team will have to find another strategy to cover the risk, which will ultimately raise the cost. The tool can provide a “page object” defined as a function for these use scenarios.

One technique to keep track of which tests run in various browsers is using tagging. You can tell the tool to “run all tests for the edge browser full size” by using tags. You can divide up the various tests, such as only running back-end, only running front-end, only running tests that use a specific API, etc.

3. Reports

Test reports and their analysis are documented in test reports. Choose a functional testing tool that has dashboards and visualizations that can be customized in terms of the level of detail for the target audience (managers, clients, and developers).

4. Costs of Licensing and Support

Think about the license cost as well as potential future costs (such as support fees and compatibility add-ons). The tool must fulfill all of your requirements without slowly depleting the testing budget.

5. Team Fit

In your company, who creates the automation scripts? Test engineers or developers? The functional testing tools you use should reflect the ethos of your team. Developers frequently write automation scripts at firms since they are more skilled programmers. When QA team members execute automation testing, it saves them time.

6. Bug Categories

Consider asking yourself, “What are the critical bugs and where do they appear?” before choosing a functional testing solution. You can use a bug tracker to find the solution. The bulk of defects may be discovered by this type of investigation in the GUI, database layer, or business logic. For instance, if the GUI has more significant issues, test the business automation.

You may like this: Importance Of Unit Testing In Software Development

Conclusion

Numerous of these automation solutions have special capabilities that can help with the expanding difficulties of automated testing. Look at the genuine issues the team is attempting to resolve. Find a tool that handles these risks, performs optimally given the team’s skill set, and interacts with work processes and technological stacks.

We at CMARIX, provide software testing services, using the most up-to-date automation techniques to provide its customers with solutions of the finest quality.

The post Functional Testing Tools: Features, Benefits, and Top Tools to Choose appeared first on CMARIX Blog.

To avoid the horror of such events, businesses Hire QA Developers to bring their product/services up to standards and give customers a reason to keep returning. QA can be best described as a proactive approach where defects get detected much before a product or service goes public. It is crucial for gaining customer satisfaction leading to a business expansion plan.

But despite having so much value, some myths rule the technology regarding QA. In this post, we will bring your attention to the myths and facts.

Does Quality Assurance Matter?

Hmm, a question that pops into everyone’s mind now and then. We, humans, tend to build loyalty towards a product or service that brings us seamless quality and experience. Anything buggy or with errors distracts us, and we consider it unfit to be used. This is where the role of quality management comes into the picture, helping businesses build their brand’s ethics and integrity. An error-free experience makes people believe that the brands they are working with care about giving customers. The best quality possible for the money they are spending.

Benefits of QA Include:

Improves customer satisfaction- Customers are highly selective these days, as they prefer to connect with the brands that care for them with a reliable product. When you offer a faultless product to them. They enjoy returning time and time and giving word-to-mouth publicity to your services. This leads to increased customer satisfaction, a positive company reputation, better longevity, greater profits, and a more stable organization.

Reduces costs- Reworking, re-assessing, scrapping failed products, only talk about increased cost for the company. When your product is well tested, you remove any such chance of wasting time, money, and effort and widen your profit margin while carving a niche for your business in the market.

Increased quality: When a quality management program is efficient, product errors are greatly reduced. The more products and services going out to the customer correctly the first time around. When you have an established pattern of fewer errors out of the gate, efficiency increases customer satisfaction.

Positive image- QA has a more significant role in improving your branding image. It helps businesses build a positive impact in the market, as they offer services that fit their taste and bring quality and good services to their doorstep.

Competitive in the market-Quality assurance allows businesses to meet their customers’ demands and expectations. With the high quality, they build trust with their customers, giving them a competitive edge in the market. And also, it saves costs and fixes issues before problems become larger. Businesses can set and maintain quality standards by preventing problems and releasing the product without any delay in the market.

Quality Assurance Can be Done Last.

A software/app has a different working mechanism that does not support Mobile App Testing towards the end. Many out there have a misbelief that quality assurance can be completed once the product is almost ready for release. But this leads to a blunder and wastes time and money both. It is a good choice to begin it at the earliest possible development cycle and find and reduce the bugs along the development journey. This saves time and money to build a scalable product as a result.

Further Reading: Essential Mobile App Testing Practices Every QA Should Follow

The quality Assurance Process is Very Quick and Easy.

No, you need to check your facts. Quality assurance does take time and effort to give the optimal outcome. It is not at all about doing it in an instant but checking every possible mistake from a technical and user perspective. Then it goes to verification as per the checklist, and it requires many tools, teams, and individuals working together to ensure the best product possible.

So if you want a desiccated testing process on your software/app, you must initiate it along with the development process.

Quality Assurance Leads to Bug/error Finding

Yeah, finding bugs and errors is a crucial aspect of quality assurance services, but it is not limited to it only. The next step of this process is to find the measures to prevent issues. The future and give a smooth user experience without cutting corners. It boils down to killing the existing bugs and finding the measures to stop any recurring bugs in the same list.

Quality Assurance Brings Expenses.

This myth is coming out of sole ignorance, as businesses think that software or an app can work wonders without the testing process, and there is no need to indulge in extra expense. But what they need to understand here is this is not an expense but an investment you’re your product. Once you offer a bug-filled experience to your users, they will run to the competitors in no time, whereas a bug-free experience makes them stay loyal to your services for longer. So you must invest in testing and not take it as an expense to save your brand’s reputation and image.

Testing Removes all the Bugs.

I would instead call this myth funny because it makes you believe that there is no more need to perform testing again once testing is done, as bugs are removed once and for all. No, you need to get rid of this myth right now, as app development is not an event but a process that keeps happening as your product services are improved. This development cycle brings bugs in the software, constantly making testers work on it. Bugs are inevitable to emerge in the development process, and you must not ignore them but rather work on them to offer a bug-free user experience.

Further Reading: 5 Most Common Challenges To Be Curated By A Professional QA Testers

Testing Can be Automated.

No wonder there are multiple benefits of automated testing, and it is helpful in so many steps. But for reliable testing, this is not the only type you can rely on. When it comes to manual testing, then there is its own set of advantages that cannot be overlooked, as humans would use the final product, so the testing process must get through the hands of humans. This helps the process work on its user experience and bring that human touch to the final product. Thus, testing can never go fully automated and must also be backed by manual testing.

QA Means-Testing

Quality Assurance is an entity with different roles, and testing is a big part of it, but not just the only part. The entire process of QA involves the entire development process, ranging from requirements gathering to product maintenance. Whereas in testing, there are some specific subdomains serving app/software testing in sync with the development life cycle to build an incredible test process.

Testing- is Not at all About Creativity.

It is a very common perception everyone around us carries that testing is a process that is full of monotony. However, what we fail to fathom is that testers are used as a single product for various apps coming from different genres. Thus, they must be creative and develop various test cases, and each new use case is filled with new features, new scenarios, and challenges. They invest their efforts in making every test case conceivable, so there is no room for monotony.

CMARIX Is Your Best Bet

QA is not something that can be picked with a random approach, but it needs to be considered with serious and structured planning. At IO, our team of experts in Quality Assurance holds significant experience to drive digital transformation for your business. We are glad to initiate a limestone plan for each QA progress. We develop and work as per the checklists, frameworks, processes, tests, methodologies and then integrate the best practices to ensure the effectiveness of every content, be it written or visual, on applications across devices. Our methods, techniques, and specialists imbibe together to shape the apps in a way that exceeds your business aspirations.

Hire On Site Developers with us, as we have a wide array of experience and expertise with a more significant number of clients; this gives hands-on experience handling different types of bugs and errors and sets the record straight for the brands to grow higher.

We undertake QA as an obligatory aspect to build products and services up to high standards. Our team of experts invests their time and efforts in evaluating various methods and provides guarantees to prevent mistakes, address any problems that do arise, and ensure consistency.

Conclusion

QA testing cannot be considered just a step in the development process, but it is a mandatory aspect that can never be dodged. With this hope, the myths cloud is clear today; we would like to sign off, but keep watching this space for more technology-induced updates and information.

Many of us think that QA is a separate division of the software development process, but eventually, it is a subset of the umbrella process of the complete development journey. It comprises software testing and software quality control processes. And needless to say, quality assurance aligns with the business goals, agreement, and other required specifications. Therefore, it cannot be taken for a drive, as it is one of the critical elements for organizations across all levels. In simpler words, if you want to escape from the expenses of rework and inessential delays, then Quality Assurance is not a choice for you.Reach us to explore the world of QA Hire Dedicated Developers with us and reach out to your users with a bug-free experience.

The post Clear the Cloud of Myths Before you Hire QA Developers appeared first on CMARIX Blog.

No matter how much effort is put in, there exist hidden problems that require an on-time solution, and QA consulting or having high quality analyst testers herein is highly important. Considering all of it, this article has been prepared for one to know what are the signs for quality assurance and what is to be expected from the end of software testing consultancy.

5 Best Challenges Faced by Every QA

1. Product Quality is Poor

It is because of the low quality or due to some unexpected concerns during production, which brings a serious business problem and causes financial loss and less customer retention. These are the situations when the businesses make some decisive decisions.

Sometimes the bad quality is like a tip and not the root cause. It is just a sign of some serious concern in the quality assurance process that might have occurred because of the wrong testing strategy or because of incompetent QA team methodology.

QA Consultants – How Can They Help?

Improving what one doesn’t understand is difficult, but identifying the gap in the process can be done. It might be a challenge for finding mistakes in any of the processes which are followed on a daily basis, and even the in-house testing team can fail here. This is why there is a requirement to hire quality analyst testers who have a background from the same development business. These independent advisors will be able to connect with managers and stakeholders and ask questions which the internal staff are reluctant to ask.

Remember, the process of assessment is highly flexible and adaptable to the business need. Start with defining the goal and specifying the area which requires assessment. Interview key people and inspect the performance by proper review of the existing documentation.

QA analysts also help in analyzing the testing strategy and setting up the tools for running the test, and for managing the team, which in turn will help you identify the gap and concerns which are associated with the quality of the software.

2. Product Release Slowdown

If the development cycle is lengthy, it is a bad sign because there exists cut throat competition where everyone is working at a light speed.

The release of the software is made at a slowdown because of,

• QA resources lack
• Testing culture is poor
• Testing tools are in-appropriate for project needs and capabilities
• In test automation, there is a lack of stability as well as reliability
• Automatic testing practices are ignored, etc.

How Can a Test Consulting Provider Help?

Businesses can accelerate their release cycle and be on top of the competitive race with an effective testing process. If the company is unable to solve any problem internally, they hire onsite developers or higher quality analyst testers who can help in scaling up the production as they understand every project’s uniqueness and how they require an out-of-the-box solution.

Test automation absence or any pitfalls are the reason for software release slowdown. As per the reports on the automation of the QA process, 61% of the respondents faced difficulties. It is to be understood that in any project, test automation is required, and strategies provided by QA consultants do help in accelerating the execution time of the test.

Automation can be done for the tests which have high risk, are repetitive, time-consuming for the manual setting, etc. Once it is identified which test is to be automated, the testing methods can be defined. One can use end-to-end testing, unit testing, etc., and get the maximum value. Consultants here are very helpful for a selection of testing tools as per the project requirement, which helps in improving the testing structure and environment together with QA methodologies for boosting the delivery time and achievement of better ROI.

Read More: Essential Mobile App Testing Practices Every QA Should Follow

3. QA Activities High Expenses

For boosting the business revenue cost of the project is to be kept low, and the testing cost along with the QA cost, it varies between 25-40% considering the project budget; if the number increases, one needs to look out for hidden concerns within the testing life cycle which require a professional opinion.

QA Consulting- How Helpful is It?

Considering the multidimensional value concept, the QA consultants are helpful for examining the testing process to know the answer to why the test is becoming expensive and when it became so? Which area is much more expensive?

The answers obtained here will be used for understanding the project expenses, and practical recommendations will be provided for building the budget planning and bringing down the cost.

Once the company hires quality analyst testers, they benefit from their consulting in different ways, like, helps in reviewing and plan improvement, which in turn increases the efficiency of the test and hence helps cut down quality assurance cost. This QA consultant, they also provide help with any specific testing professional as per the requirement and this, in turn, helps to reduce the cost.

4. QA Engineers and Their Excessive Workload

Lack of resources, time pressure, and alike can be the reasons for this challenge. There are many situations where the work of QA consultants is done by the testing experts who are unable to cope up with the project scope or by anyone who lacks knowledge. There are many more perfect examples that show that the QA engineers should not be pressured.

QA Consulting- Which Solutions offer it?

The software testing process can be evaluated by the QA consultant, and they will be able to reveal many reasons for an increased workload and based upon the gap, one will receive professional advice for optimizing the resources and giving the development as well as the QA team the right opportunity for concentrating over the priority task.

As a part of these recommendations, one can we asked to,

• Have a better estimation of the testing scope.
• Get an updated set for the testing tools.
• Receive expert advice over organizing some effective processes.

The process of QA consulting services has a huge range, and there is always a solution irrespective of what improvement is required in the process.

5. Professional Niche & Testing Experience Lack

For internal quality assurance, sometimes businesses fight a lot, but they lack the expertise for testing the domains. The also lacks some innovative approaches which can all be handled by simple steps,

• Hire onsite Developers and QA testers
• Outsourcing the task
• Internal team training.

Surely hiring involves heavy expenses, which sometimes business cannot afford as there are many secondary costs involved, including the recruiting expenses, the training cost, social package cost, and event disagreement risk with all of the employees who already exist.

Software Testing Consultancy- What is Offered Here?

The QA consultancy offers not just staff training but also helps in outsourcing cost-effectively. They can even help in preparing the staff members for handling different aspects required for the process. Some even offer practical knowledge, proper training sessions, and workshops which are dedicated for,

• Quality evaluation and testing processes
• QA documentation which is well informed
• Test scripts writing
• Introduction to testing automation

So, having a QA consulting company not just helps avoid hiring overhead costs but also helps in the development of testing culture internally.

What is Useful to Know to Hire QA Testers / Consultants?

There are many benefits associated with QA consulting, which the business wants to use and benefit from. Remember, the process of testing and development is never static, and there is a continuous need to adapt to the changing conditions of the business environment. Some other situations where one might need the help of the software testing provided include,

• There is a requirement for an effective budget with the testing cost at a reasonable estimate.
• There are concerns with the communication process between the development team and QA.
• An increasing number of projects which require documentation in a structured manner.
• There is a transparency and control lack that fails to provide a complete picture of the testing life cycle.
• There is a huge requirement for an effective testing environment that can consider in and out of business processes.

For consulting services and for software testing, there are many market available choices that one can use and take advantage of. Many companies are providing help. So do not wait; increase the competency and the ROI.

The post 5 Most Common Challenges To Be Curated By A Professional QA Testers appeared first on CMARIX Blog.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) have already been leveraged in the software test automation earlier and they gave smarter testing output. Development and testing teams are now capable of leveraging AI/ML technologies to boost automation, make faster adaptation, and more effective operation.

In the last year, there has been a renewed effort in utilizing these two technologies for quality assurance (QA) and test automation across the sectors. Development and testing teams are increasingly utilizing these two technologies for prioritizing the test cases, defect detection and classification, pointing test objects, and making interactions during the test, etc.

Test Cases For AI and ML Implementation

There can be no doubt in the fact that AI will continue to play a definitive role in testing processes. No wonder, almost all testing cases and testing methods now utilize AI and ML technologies. Before you hire an iOS or Android app development service provider, you need to have a clear idea of how AI can impact these test cases.

Let us explain some of the principal use cases of AI and ML-based test automation.

• Log Analysis: Identifying unique test cases for manual and automated testing.
• Optimizing Testing Suites: Identify and get rid of recurring and unnecessary test cases.
• Optimum Test Coverage: Ensure optimum test coverage by using the Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM).
• Predictive Analytics: Identity key app areas and prescribing the key testing parameters for prediction.
• Defect Analysis: Identifying various app areas and corresponding app defects that require repair work.

In 2020 and years beyond, machine learning will also be more mature and more organizations will implement ML algorithms to get a competitive edge. No wonder, mobile app testing will get a fair share of these activities involving machine learning technology.

What AI/ML Testing Means for Businesses?

In spite of the fact that there is an increasing demand for AI/ML applications in software testing, most of us know that AI/ML-based testing is still not mature enough. Though, we know that maturity is coming anytime soon in this regard.

AI poses a lot of new demands for testing and QA. This is why it is important for Agile teams to get versed in AI-based skills. Some of these crucial skills include data science onboarding, statistics and mathematical expertise. Apart from this, business decision making is another important skill to adopt. The successful AI/ML-based testing professionals should be equipped with a good combination of AI skills and business decision-making skills. When it comes to the developers of automation tools, there should be a full focus on practical uses.

3 Ways AI/ML is Transforming App Testing

Let us now explain the 3 most important ways AI is transforming testing.

• The Changing Tools and Equipment

As AI and Ml are continuing to become mainstream technologies for app testing, new tools and software are continuing to make AI implementation easier. AI will push for the creation of a whole array of sophisticated testing tools to ensure faster, better and less expensive testing output. AI will completely transform the way we used to do the selection, management, and driving system under test (SUT).

• Determinism Will Perish

For many app testers when utilizing AI for testing one of the biggest moments is to understand that AI doesn’t give precedence to determinism for detecting issues. The solutions provided by AI continue to change as a system continues to get exposure to new data. The testing objectives continue to change as the testing mechanism incorporates new data.

There can be many surprising outcomes with AI-based testing. A testing professional needs to run a testing program several times just to make sure that the statistical conclusion is precise and accurate. Thus requires the testing infrastructure to learn continuously through the test result data. The testing results continue to fine-tune the AI-based decision making and thus make the output better.

• We Will Be More Insightful as Testers

While human reasoning is all-powerful compared to the machine led intelligence and reasoning, with the help of AI and ML algorithms that help data-driven decision making, even human testers and testing experts of future years will be more insightful and precise than ever before.
Just consider a situation where both the testing systems and the applications subject to testing use AI and ML technologies. This happened with some testing cases where the automation in spite of knowing the intricacies of the system could not step on the middle step between accurate and inaccurate system behaviours under testing. In such scenarios, testing professionals can play an effective role as they know the source, the product owner, a customer or just a stakeholder.

How can the AI-powered system testing AI apps can influence us as testers? Well, testing professionals and test engineers of the future working with AI algorithms and tools will require quite a robust skill set for building and maintaining AI-based test suites capable of testing AI-based apps. Such tasks will need more deeper and robust data science skills, and command over deep learning principles.

Conclusion

Finally, the last question that we need to face is whether app testers and testing professionals will become extinct like dinosaurs. Well, as testing is going through a comprehensive transformation thanks to AI and ML-based algorithms, such an outcome cannot be completely refuted as a possibility. In the years to come, human testers will continue to have less and less impact in the field of software testing. Only a few trained and expert data scientists will be able to take responsibility for testing tasks and output at large. The future of testing definitely belongs to AI and ML

The post How Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) Can Revolutionize Mobile App Testing? appeared first on CMARIX Blog.

But app testing also went through several approaches over the years. Ranging across manual testing to performance testing to automation testing, mobile app testing is now exposed to different procedures and approaches.

Before we explain the key principles of mobile app testing that every development company should keep in mind, let us briefly explain the key mobile app testing processes.

• Automation Testing:

  Automation testing of mobile apps through the use of sophisticated tools, cloud platforms and mobile simulators is popular to deliver faster and precise testing results for diverse devices, platforms and also for scalability of the respective app.

• Manual or Actual Device Testing:

  In spite of the increasing popularity of automation testing, manual testing of the mobile apps across actual devices remained invincible because this type of testing can explore the pain points across various devices and users in more details.

• Performance Testing:

  Performance testing is crucial to evaluate the loading speed, functional performance and ease of navigation as well as accessibility for the user experience. Performance testing reveals the bugs, errors and UX errors that are preventing the app from acting the way it is expected to be.

Let us now explain some of the key principles of app testing that developers and QA Developers team of app development companies should keep in mind.

Knowing The Type, Scope And Objective Of The Application

To begin with, the app tester first has an in-depth understanding of the application project, nature of the app, the particular scope and need of testing in relation to the app nature and the objectives the testing process needs to achieve.

• Having an Understanding Of The Audience

  The mobile app tester must have an in-depth understanding of the audience for whom the app is targeted. The tester remains always expectant about the app much more than with earlier desktop or web. This is why it is important to have an understanding of the expectation of the audience. This is only possible only by knowing the demographics, characteristics and typical preferences of the target users if the app. This helps the tester to have an idea on particular user likings concerning UI/UX Design Service functions and features, visual design, etc.

• Having a Well-Defined Testing Strategy

  Now, after having a clear understanding of the user audience, the app testing team must formulate a well-defined strategy with the objective of evaluating the app performance and user experience in relation to user expectations.

• Testing On Actual Mobile Devices

  While using emulators and simulators is perfectly suited for the early stage of development, testing an app on real devices is quite invincible for evaluating the actual performance and output of the app.

• UX testing

  User experience or UX testing is the must-do testing procedure for any mobile app irrespective of the niche just because the success of an app primarily depends on the user experience. A mobile app tester should evaluate the user journey, consistency of the UI, the UI interaction with the user, UI visual elements and effects, specific device feedback, and functional ease for the users.

• Deciding On The Types Of Devices To Be Used For Testing

  The mobile app tester should also decide about the list of devices and OS versions on which he can test the respective app. You should only pick devices that are still supported by manufacturers. In certain cases where you need to test the app in older devices, you can also test the app on a few emulators representing older devices.

• Different Approaches For Testing Web-Based And Native Apps

  The web-based apps and native apps are inherently different from each other in many respects. From the common UX elements to the loading and performance, native apps cannot be judged with the same yardstick as the web-based apps. Let us explain the different considerations between native and web apps.

• Testing considerations for native apps:

  In case of testing a native app the process should cover the entire process starting from the installation to the launch. For native apps, the testers should also have access to the device ID, especially if the app makes use of third-party APIs.

• Testing considerations for web apps:

  Apps running on the web, testing connectivity of the app for Wi-Fi, mobile internet, and connectivity standards like 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, GPRS, etc is important. Loading speed, caching and performance testing is some of the major aspects of web apps.

• Automation Testing

  Automation testing plays an important role in the app development process. It saves a lot of development time if it is done concurrently throughout the development process. Agile development methodology ensures testing the app at every step without interfering with the development process.

Testing App Performance And Connectivity

Performance testing of the app can reveal if there is any memory leak the app is suffering from. Such tests can also save a lot of battery power by helping to remove the redundant code. Performance testing also ensures optimizing certain crucial device features like GPS and Camera. The testing of the app connectivity evaluates the usage of the processor and memory and app behavior when switching from one type of connectivity to another. It also helps to optimize the network bandwidth usage for optimum connectivity.

• Testing The Security Aspects

  The app testing also covers the security aspects like the data encryption and data authentication as well as accessibility and security of sensitive data. The security testing also evaluates the app interacts with other third-party interfaces and software solutions. It evaluates the loopholes through which the app remains vulnerable to malicious data attacks.

• Testing Internationalization And Localization

  For an app having global exposure and the worldwide audience, it is extremely important to ensure the adaptability of the app with international languages, currencies, social customs and constraints of different locations. Similarly, for an app targeted for a specific local audience, it is extremely important to adjust to the language, communication, geographics and constraints of the local audience.

• Testing The Updating Process

  This testing process will test how smoothly the new updates are installed and put in effect across devices. It should notice whether the installation of the new app update is experiencing crashes or not.

• Testing The Restricted Access to The Log File

  Finally, the app testers should test the log files and check whether the app is safeguarding user data and whether the users, in general, are being able to access restricted data of the app.

  Do you require expert application testers or testing environment for your new mobile app? Let us tell you how our expert app testing process can help your app with precise and scrupulous evaluation. Feel free to drop us a message and let us reach you at the earliest.

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Any software development company India finds unit testing as an integral part of their process mainly because it drastically reduces the bugs. Naturally, it serves as a critical part of any software development process. Here through the length of this post, we are going to explain the key misconceptions about unit testing and how they benefit the software development process.

What is Unit Testing?

Let’s start with the basics, the definition of Unit Testing. It is not the type of testing which is carried out at the end of the development process just like the QA testing. As the name suggests, it is about testing the various units of the app during the development process.

It is performed during the coding of the app itself. By conducting unit testing throughout the development process you can reduce the bugs to a minimum level. The objective of unit testing is to find out and eradicate bugs before the customers detect them.

Unit testing is done to detect the logical flaws in various features and functions. When the app is required to incorporate the zip code within the user interface, a Unit Test will detect how it works like the way it is conceived to work logically. Basically, this testing method offers the developers confidence of building various functions of their app right and move ahead.

When building a large enterprise application, unit testing offers the ease of testing different software functions separately. By finding errors at every step and with every part of the development process such tests help to find errors quickly. So, Unit Testing removes the possibility of producing software full of bugs that may lead to increased development cost and time to market.

Key Misconceptions About Unit Testing

Software developers worldwide harbor several misconceptions about unit testing. While some consider it to be unnecessarily time consuming and counterproductive, there are several others who forget the differences with QA and static analysis along with the respective roles of each different process. Professional software testing services come in your aid to nullify such misconceptions and provide you with the real picture about unit testing.
Let us now explain a few misconceptions concerning unit tests.

• Unit Test Is More Important Than Static Analysis

  While to ensure the best development process, a software development company needs to utilize various testing and analysis tools and methods, each one of them has its own significance. You cannot consider static analysis at par with the unit test. Unit test works as the first and elementary defense against the software bugs and coding errors. It detects logical flaws in functions long before they are detected by the static analysis. Static analysis has its own importance but it is never effective during the programming stage.

• It Is Radically Different From QA

  While Unit Testing is basically done to detect errors during the programming and prevent them from getting into the final software product, QA process basically fixes the bugs and errors. Obviously, preventive measures to eradicate bugs long before they get into software products are more cost-effective than fixing them through the QA process.

• It Is Also About Deploying The Right Logic

  If you think, through unit tests you will get hold of only bugs and that is the only reason to utilize unit testing, you missed out on another important thing. Unit Testing is also done to fix the flaws in the logical flow of devising a function and it is also utilized by the developers to ensure a better understanding of the code.

• Changing The Source Code Is Not Necessary

  There is another big misconception about unit testing. Many think that changing the source code isn’t necessary for unit testing. But, to increase the test coverage and to ensure better testing output, sometimes the total architecture of the entire code needs to be taken within the ambit. It is really good to change the source code as well if that really helps in making the code structure better.

• A Unit Test Is Only Utilitarian

  There are many developers who still think that unit testing is done with a primary focus on making particular functions better and it has an only utilitarian objective to make the app functionally more useful. While this notion is partially correct, but apart from making certain functions work in the desired manner unit testing is also carried out to make the overall code structure better.

• Good or bad unit test coding

  Another major misconception is about writing good or bad unit test code. Actually, there is nothing as good unit test coding. You only need to write the code correctly. You only need to write perfectly testable code for the unit test.

• The Unit Test Will Extend The Development Time Unnecessarily

  Many developers coming under pressure to meet the deadline often cut the unit test from the process for saving time. Actually, they do it because of a lack of understanding about the importance of unit testing. Actually, through unit tests, you detect and prevent the bugs early that finally reduces the product life cycle time as the developers need to spend less time fixing the bugs and testing the app manually. So, unit testing actually saves development time and simplifies the process without compromising on qualitative inputs.

Key Benefits Of Unit Testing For Software Development

Unit testing with its immediate benefit of assuring bug-free code makes way for a whole range of benefits. It delivers a whole array of benefits for software development processes including preventing errors early, perfecting the code architecture, offering a documentation source, reducing the development cost and time by minimizing the scope for manual testing and bug fixing at the later stage of development, etc.
Let us have a look at these key advantages more intently down below.

1. Ensuring The Agile Development Process

A principal advantage of unit testing is the agility it brings in the development process. Just by preventing errors and bugs early and by preventing them to get away unnoticed, unit test reduces the entire time, effort and cost required for fixing the bugs or for manual testing. In effect, this makes the entire development process agile and fast-paced. The approach of unit testing in evaluating a software product concurrently throughout the development process just fits the agile development methodology.

2. Ensuring Optimum Code Quality

Unit testing detects the logic flaws or bugs long before the application is sent for integration testing. This in effect ensures better code quality for the software. Just by focusing on the separate parts of the software code and also on the alignment with the app architecture, it leaves no leaf unturned to optimize the coding input throughout the development process.

3. Makes Changes And Integration Easier

One of the notable benefits of unit testing is that it facilitates refactoring the application code and upgrading the entire system libraries in a scheduled date later on. It helps to decipher the changes in the code that may not go well with the app design. This actually helps in better maintenance of the code.
Even when it is used to detect flaws in existing functionality, it detects and addresses the flaws perfectly. Thanks to the evaluation and thorough testing of each unit of the app the integration of the units at a later stage in the development lifecycle becomes easier.

4. It Also Becomes a Source Of Documentation

Unit testing offers very detailed documentation of the system to help developers through the process of development. The developers can easily consult this documents for knowing about the functions and how they can be integrated into an app by aligning with the app logic.

5. Easier And Faster-Debugging Process

Unit testing boosts the ease and simplicity in the process of debugging. Whenever a test fails, the developers can just debug the latest changes in the code to restore proper functioning.

6. It Brings Down Development Cost Significantly

The last but not the least advantage of unit testing is the reduced time and cost of development. As the Unit Testing allows detecting and eradicating the bugs early and right when the code of a function is being written, it drastically reduces the entire time and cost for fixing bugs at a mature stage of the development lifecycle. This in effect, helps reducing and development cost and time to a great extent.

Does your software development process need experts for unit testing? Do you need sophisticated tools and professionals for unit testing? Well, you have arrived at the right place. At CMARIX, we have expert and experienced unit testing and QA professionals to ensure optimum coding input for your application. Just feel free to drop us a message with your query.

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You’ve been there, right? You’ve had been facing the same scenario with different application development, you might have set back and hoping that there must be a better solution for this? Yes, there is a solution that can help you shorten this monotonous task. PHPUnit testing, it won’t just save you a lot of headache during development, but it can result in more maintainable code with better performance, allowing you to make changes without hesitation and fewer security issues.

PHPUnit is a programmer-oriented testing framework created by Sebastian Bergmann. It is an instance of the xUnit design for unit testing frameworks. It is an outstanding testing framework for writing Unit Tests for PHP web applications. Unit tests take small portions of code which are known as units and test them one by one. It can be utilized via the command line, and it gives a helpful TestCase class that you can extend according to your needs. PHPUnit additionally allows developers to utilize pre-written declaration techniques to assert that the application behaves a specific way.

A good recommendation is to build up a beneficial testing work process in which you have to write your own particular testing code that checks if the application code works appropriately. The trick is that the testing code should be written before the application code. This way you can assure from the very beginning that the code you write works legitimately. The testing code will go into separate files. If you later come across any errors in your PHP web application, you don’t have to do anything, simply run your tests that ideally will give you appropriate insights about the bugs.

Key Concepts of PHP Unit

• Assertions

  These are what you add to your tests to ‘assert’ that something is valid, for example, an AssertFileExists would be used to check that a specified file exists what is expected. As a best practice, you would have one assertion for each test though there’s nothing to stop you having a few.

• Stubs

  If the unit of code you’re testing has a relied upon another object, you could use a ‘stub’ as a ‘test double’ to replace the original component. This allows you to focus on only testing of that one unit of code. You can configure stub techniques to return custom qualities.

• Mocks

  It is also used as a ‘test double’ similar like Stub, but to check that the test double object has received requests from the subject code as per defined expectations.

• Annotations

  An annotation is a unique type of syntactic metadata that can be added to the source code in PHP. It is used for annotating source code. For an instance @after annotation can be used to specify methods that should be called after each test method in a test case class.

Benefits of PHP Unit

• Reduction in Development Time

  With the help of PHPUnit testing, you can find issues early in the development cycle. This includes both bugs and missing parts of the specification for the unit. As you’ll write and run tests alongside development, issues will be picked up as soon as they occur, instead of being found at the end of the development process. The backtracking of the issues may be costly if found towards the end.

• Facilitates change

  We all know that changing code conveys a hazard. Will the new code work the same way as the old one? PHPUnit testing permits the programmer to refactor code or upgrade framework libraries at a later date, and ensure the module still works effectively. The methodology is to write test cases for all functions and methods so that at whatever point a change causes a fault, it can be immediately identified.

• Simplifies integration

  PHPUnit testing may reduce uncertainty in the units themselves and can be utilized as a part of a bottom-up testing approach. By testing the elements of a program first and then testing its subparts, integration testing becomes much easier.

• Enhance Design

  At the point when programming is developed using a test-driven approach, the combination of writing the PHPUnit test to determine the interface in addition to the refactoring activities performed after the test is passing, may replace formal design. Each unit test can be viewed as a design element specifying classes, methods, and perceptible behavior. When you include Mock Objects this can drive the design of multiple classes and their interactions with each other. It will enhance design because testable classes should essentially be more adaptable and decoupled.

• Measure of Completion

  If you’ve written your tests to cover every single required features and functionality of classes, and all are passing, then it’s reasonably safe to accept that you’ve completed the code successfully. If some time later, there might arise a need to add new feature to the application, in this scenario with agile practices the tests can not only drive design but also capture functional prerequisites.

  As per the saying “The only way to go fast is to go well” testing is inevitable aspect of effective application development. You can create something truly rapidly but without testing the technical depth, it might create drawbacks and each change to overcome these drawbacks will be very costly. PHPUnit frameworks empower you to write higher quality PHP code and empower you to develop PHP web applications.

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