Are you making most of Test automation?

Test automation is a beautiful and a very handy concept. Making computer doing things while you watch all those things that you would otherwise don’t observe – can be a very powerful thing in Testing. Deploying Automation can magnify the reach of manual tests in lots of ways. Unfortunately, Automation in lots of places has been deployed with intention to replace (not supplement, enhance or extend) human Testing.

If you are using Test automation for following cases – you are making the BEST use the investment made in creating and maintaining automation suites …

1. Those tests that have a high chance of human errors, those features that under go minute changes frequently that a human eye is likely to miss.
2. Another extreme of (1) – Routine and mundane tasks like installation and smoke tests.
3. Frequently repeated, High volume repetitive Tests
4. For covering multiple platforms
5. Those cases where it would impossible to perform a test manually
a. Simulating some behavior that exposes a risk e.g. memory leakage


Less desirable or efficient Usages of Automation

1. Automating a set of low power manual tests just to cut down the cycle time of testing of those tests manually – without evaluation of those tests.
2. Automating every test that is possible to automate and aim at covering maximum of testing by automation – a notion of “more is better”

Shrini