Right Automation Tool selection is like finding the right ride for your journey. If you choose the wrong one, it will make your journey miserable.
Automated testing is the backbone of mobile testing. This is more so in mobile testing than web testing, because of the shorter release cycle of mobile apps. The rise in popularity of agile development, continuous delivery, and DevOps is giving further impetus to mobile test automation. The success of mobile testing automation is dependent on the choice of tools.
Let’s look at the main criteria for mobile test automation tools selection
License cost
The license cost of the testing tool is a major factor that can result in a go or no-go decision. There are several free and paid tools available in the market. In general, the market is dominated by free tools. The free tools are able to cover the basic functionality requirements. However, as you move up the testing complexity and volume, not all free tools are able to handle the complexity and volume. It can also happen that you absolutely require a particular functionality that is available in a particular tool. So the decision should be based on both the license cost and your requirements.
Can be used by non – programmers
Before selecting the right tool make sure the automation tool provides a good amount of inbuilt libraries by which the tester can easily automate the test cases without the tester knowing a lot of programming.
Learning
Another challenge in selecting the right automation tool is its ease of use. If you are picking a tool that is complex and needs a lot of time to learn, then it may affect the project completion time. A tester would be tied to his computers all day long learning the tool and as consequence doing unproductive work. The short learning curve is, therefore, a must.
OS support
This is another basic criterion to be considered while you make the Selection. The tool must be able to support different Operating systems in the market both established as well as new (like FirefoxOS).
If you fail to select the automation tool which supports all major Operating systems, then you may end up running an automation testing suite on different platforms using different tools. This could lead to more cost, more effort, and less output.
Integration
Mobile Test Automation can’t be executed in an isolated environment. Mobile testing tools have to be integrated with Build Management and Release Management Tools. It is important for the Automation tool to be in sync with the existing Release and Build Management Tools. Define Test Automation Requirements like Test Cases that are to be automated belong to which category: Desktop Application tests, Unit Tests, Web Based tests, Web Services tests, DB tests. Mobile Testing Tools Selection depends a lot on what kind of tests it is expected to automate.
Automated Test Scripting
Scripts are very important when performing automated testing and you should consider the automated software testing tools which provide scripting capabilities while selecting the Mobile Automation Testing Tools.
Additional features to be considered:
- Object identification methods
- Gesture Support
- Language used
- Support for Internet Browsers
- Record and playback mechanism
- Support for Cross-browser tests
- Reports
