Build Robust and Easily Maintainable Web Testing Suites

Web testing, or website testing, is verifying that your web application or website is defect-free before it is deployed and made accessible online. As applications nowadays get more complex and dynamic, using a set of APIs and services, web testing can involve checking not only the process output in the user interface, but also API calls, database inputs, client/server communication and other functionality of the application under test.

Choosing the types of web application testing that are relevant for you depends on what aspects of your website or app are critical for your business and must be checked on regular basis: the functionality, usability, user interface consistency, integrations, database queries, browser compatibility, performance and security.

Some of these web testing types can be combined within the same automated web tests or enhanced by one another. For example, Test Studio allows you to improve your functional web tests with API calls and thus test the integrity and reliability of your APIs calls and integrations. Verifying web functionality can involve automating test runs against different browsers, browser versions and devices, which enables you to check for browser compatibility and responsive behavior at the same time.

Proving that your web application works as intended requires a test plan that integrates several testing techniques and leverages a variety of tests, each of which proves some aspect of your application is ready for deployment. The dynamics of how users interact with the web make it difficult for organizations to ensure their apps work well for most users who access them. Although browsers have become more consistent in how they render web applications, different browser versions or devices can still occasionally compromise the quality and integrity of your website.

The most common web testing techniques you should consider practicing as part of your regression testing suite or whenever you build changes into the UI, include testing forms, cookies, links and redirects as well as verifying the HTML/CSS as to make sure search engines can crawl your site. Testing business workflows end-to-end is also critical to ensure that users can seamlessly complete user transactions such as logging in, checking out at payment gateways or going through a sequence of webpages to perform an action. Also, making sure that UI changes haven’t caused regressions is key for the success of each consecutive web deployment.

Many testing teams have concerns about whether they should rely on low-code/codeless testing tools and approaches to record their web and cross-browser tests or if they should use open-source libraries and code their tests from scratch. Both ways will work well for you, but which one is more effective depends on your team and organizational needs and skill set.

Websites with low complexity can be automated with simple codeless test tools, some of which are free and even available online. However, as your web application and cross-browser test suite expand, these tools will hit limitations. For instance, it may become challenging to keep duplication low by reusing common steps, elements and tests or handle complex UI scenarios requiring to find specific selectors on a page. In those cases, a robust test automation tool will certainly improve your testing experience by providing you greater flexibility and the advanced testing tools that you need.

Like most tools out there, Test Studio locates elements based on the DOM tree, but takes it further by adding a patented element detection system and OCR. Test Studio leverages a hybrid technology to identify objects based on both the object’s ID and image as a back-up mechanism and stores them in one centralized location. Elements can be reused across tests to simplify element management and reduce duplication of work. This combination of automation techniques helps eliminate test flakiness and reduce the test maintenance that many low-code testing tools introduce.

Automating web testing brings a lot of advantages as it can remove significant barriers that stand in the way of performing thorough and comprehensive website testing:

• Time efficiencies: Web automation as an opposite to manual web testing saves time that can be dedicated to other important tasks, such as building and maintaining a stable and robust web test suite instead of going through all test cases manually each time a change is introduced to the web UI. Web regression testing is also a time-consuming activity that, when automated, can take care of tedious repetitive tasks, eliminate work duplication and free up time for in-depth exploratory or new feature testing, ensuring product increment delivery happens on time.
• Test coverage: Testing your web for discrepancies across browsers, browser versions, operating systems, form factors and devices requires you to run the same tests against various scenarios to accommodate all conditions. The more complex the web app is, the bigger the number of test scenarios you need to cover becomes. Recording a test and running it against all varying conditions saves a lot of time while you ensure appropriate coverage of all test scenarios that are critical for your business.
• Test maintenance: As web applications get more complex and dynamic, end-to-end web tests tend to be the hardest to keep up to date. If you’re using low-level CSS selectors to look for specific elements on the page, every little change to the DOM will result in dozens of broken tests. Test Studio includes a hybrid element-detection logic that can find elements based on complex selector queries and, when needed, images. That is why your tests are less likely to break when you update your page’s hierarchy. This takes a considerable burden off your team and reduces the test maintenance to a minimum, allowing you to focus on more important tasks.

Web apps are hosted on a remote server and run in a web browser, allowing users with internet connection to access them from anywhere. Desktop applications run locally on a desktop (Windows) operating system and can be accessed on personal or remote machines. Based on that, there are several differences in the tools and techniques required to test a web vs. desktop app:

• Testing environment setup: In desktop testing, the number of clients and servers is specified, while for web apps it is critical to test the application’s behavior, performance and cross browser compatibility under different operating systems.
• Test results monitoring: Test monitoring complexity is different for desktop vs. web application testing. In web testing, it is critical to monitor how your web tests perform across a variety of browsers, browser versions, mobile devices, form factors, etc., while in desktop testing you only need visibility into how the app behaves under a specific operating system when used by a single user or a limited number of users.
• Security and access authentication: Desktop applications run as part of closed and secured environments while web apps are exposed to higher security risks. Due to the use of various authentication methods and protocols, an important aspect of end-to-end web testing is to make sure that users can access the application.

Test Studio can be used to automate practically anything that runs on the web, regardless if it is .NET or JavaScript based. It is also a good choice if you are looking for a tool to automate component-based applications as it supports all third-party commercial UI component libraries, such as DevExpress, Infragistics and Syncfusion.

Test Studio plays particularly well with your favorite Telerik and Kendo UI components thanks to its built-in, ready-to-use translators. These are wrappers that open the element and expose the specific and custom properties, allowing you to add action and verification steps on the go. This genuinely native technology significantly cuts down testing time in component-based applications.