Forem: Robert Martin

Performing OTT Automation Testing on All Devices

Robert Martin — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 18:59:18 +0000

OTT Automation Testing refers to automating tests for Over-The-Top (OTT) applications. These applications deliver media content, such as video and audio, directly to users via the Internet, bypassing traditional broadcast methods.

In OTT Automation Testing, developers automate various test scenarios and functionalities of OTT applications using specialized tools and frameworks. This step enables efficient and consistent testing across different devices and platforms.

The primary objective of OTT Automation Testing is to ensure the quality, functionality, and performance of OTT applications. Organizations can save time, increase test coverage, and improve product reliability by automating the testing process.

Automated tests in OTT Automation Testing focus on verifying essential aspects of an OTT application, such as video playback, content delivery, user interface, navigation, and compatibility with various devices and OS.

By utilizing OTT automation testing, organizations can identify and address issues early in the development cycle, enhance the user experience, and maintain high application performance and stability.

Benefits of OTT Automation Testing

- Enhanced efficiency

OTT automation testing enables the execution of tests across various devices simultaneously, saving time and effort.
It allows for faster identification and resolution of issues, leading to more efficient development cycles.

- Improved test coverage

Automation testing can cover a wide range of scenarios and test cases, ensuring comprehensive test coverage.
It helps identify potential defects and compatibility issues across multiple devices, ensuring a high-quality user experience.

- Cost savings

Automated testing reduces the need for manual intervention, which can result in significant cost savings.

It minimizes human errors and the need for additional resources, optimizing the testing process.

- Accelerated time-to-market

By automating repetitive testing tasks, OTT automation testing reduces the overall testing time.

It enables faster deployment of OTT applications, helping businesses reach the market quickly and gain a competitive edge.

- Consistency and reliability

Automation testing ensures consistent and reliable test results, eliminating the variability introduced by manual testing.

It allows for precise test execution and data-driven validations, enhancing the reliability of the testing process.

- Scalability and flexibility

You can easily scale automation frameworks to accommodate many devices and platforms.

They provide flexibility to adapt and incorporate changes in the OTT application without significant rework.

- Continuous integration and delivery

OTT automation testing seamlessly integrates with continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.

It facilitates frequent and reliable testing in an agile development environment, supporting rapid iterations and deployments.

- Increased test accuracy

Automated test scripts execute test cases with precision and consistency, minimizing the risk of human errors.

It allows for thorough validation of OTT application functionality, resulting in higher test accuracy.

You can reap these benefits by leveraging OTT automation testing and ensuring a robust and efficient testing process for your OTT applications.

Performing OTT Automation Testing on All Devices

- Prepare your testing environment

Ensure you have access to the necessary OTT testing tools and frameworks.
Set up the required hardware and software configurations for each device you test.

- Define your testing objectives

Clearly outline the specific aspects of the OTT application you want to test.
Identify the key functionalities, performance metrics, and compatibility requirements.

- Develop a comprehensive test plan

Break down your testing process into manageable steps.
Define the test cases, including inputs, expected outputs, and necessary preconditions or dependencies.

- Select the appropriate test automation tools

Research and choose reliable automation tools that support OTT testing across multiple devices.
Ensure the tools can handle your OTT application’s specific features and functionalities.

- Create test scripts and automation frameworks

Write test scripts using a programming language compatible with your chosen automation tools.
Design a robust automation framework that facilitates test execution, result reporting, and error handling.

- Perform test execution

Execute the test scripts across the various devices in your testing environment.
Monitor the test execution process and collect relevant data and logs for analysis.

- Analyze test results

Evaluate the test results to determine the success or failure of each test case.
Identify any defects or issues and document them clearly and concisely.

- Report and communicate findings

Prepare a comprehensive test report summarizing the results, including any identified problems or risks.
Share the report with stakeholders such as developers, QA teams, and project managers.

- Iterate and improve

Incorporate the lessons learned from the testing process into future iterations.
Continuously enhance your test cases, automation scripts, and overall testing strategy.

- Software Testing Platforms

Organizations also consider leveraging software testing platforms. Many platforms have years of testing experience and can provide access to essential tools that make video streaming performance testing a breeze.

HeadSpin lets its users connect to real, SIM-enabled devices. Users can connect to these devices from any location and run tests. Additionally, users can also perform OTT automation testing using HeadSpin. Its audio-visual platform makes this possible. Reach out!

Conclusion

Following these steps, you can perform OTT automation testing on all devices. Remember to maintain consistency and accuracy throughout the testing process. You can also leverage software testing tools to help meet your testing needs.

Source: https://citygoldmedia.com/performing-ott-automation-testing-on-all-devices/

A Guide to Testing Banking Applications

Robert Martin — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 16:46:56 +0000

Banking applications are software programs designed to manage banking services such as account management, deposits, withdrawals, loans, and other financial transactions. With the rapid growth of technology, banking applications have become essential in the banking sector, and their usage has increased significantly.

Since banking applications deal with financial transactions, they are critical applications that require rigorous testing to ensure their functionality, security, and accuracy. This article will discuss how to test banking applications and provide a complete guide.

Types of Testing For Banking Applications

There are several types of software testing in financial services that organizations should perform to ensure their functionality and security. These types of testing include:

1. Functional Testing

Functional testing ensures that the banking application meets specifics. It involves testing the application’s features and functions, such as account management, deposits, withdrawals, loans, and other financial transactions.

2. Performance Testing

As the name implies, performance testing focuses on how well an app does its job. The application is put through rigorous testing under various load and stress scenarios.

3. Security Testing

Security testing ensures the application’s security by identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities such as unauthorized access, data theft, and other security threats.

4. Usability Testing

Usability testing tests the app’s user experience. It involves testing the application’s user interface, navigation, and overall user experience.

5. Integration Testing

Integration testing helps developers ensure the application integrates well with other systems and applications in the banking environment. Testing the application’s ability to interact seamlessly with other systems and applications involves testing it.

6. Regression Testing

Regression testing verifies that changes made to the application do not adversely affect its existing features and functions.

7. User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

User acceptance testing helps the application meet the user’s requirements and expectations. It involves testing the application from the user’s perspective and ensuring it meets their needs.

Steps to Test Banking Applications

1. Requirement Analysis

The first step in banking application testing is requirement analysis. This involves analyzing the requirement documents and understanding requirements.

2. Test Planning

After requirement analysis, the next step is test planning. This involves creating a test plan outlining the testing objectives, scope, test cases, and schedule.

3. Test Case Development

Test case development involves creating test cases to test apps. Test cases should cover all the apps and be designed to test different scenarios and edge cases.

4. Defect Tracking And Reporting

Testers must track and report test defects to the development team. Defect tracking and reporting should be done using a tool to ensure all defects are properly documented, tracked, and resolved.

5. Test Closure

Test closure is the final step in testing banking applications. It involves evaluating the test results, preparing a test closure report, and obtaining stakeholder sign-off.

Best Practices For Testing Banking Applications

To ensure that banking applications are tested thoroughly, the following best practices should be followed:

- Use a Risk-Based Approach

A risk-based approach should be used to identify and prioritize the application’s critical functionalities and ensure they are tested thoroughly.

- Ensure Test Data Security

When testing banking applications, it is important to ensure that the test data used is secure and does not compromise the application’s security. Test data should be masked, encrypted, or obscured to ensure hackers don’t have access to sensitive information.

- Test Across Different Environments

Banking applications are used across different web, mobile, and desktop environments. Testing the application across these different environments is important to ensure it functions as expected in all environments.

- Use Automation Testing

Automation testing can improve the efficiency and accuracy of testing banking applications. Developers can use automation testing tools to automate repetitive tasks and perform regression testing.

HeadSpin is a test automation platform that you can use to help test banking apps. HeadSpin lets you connect to real devices and provides detailed insights into each test. The Ai allows users to plan their next moves, test comprehensively, and build powerful apps. Reach out!

- Ensure Compliance With Regulatory Standards

Banking applications are subject to regulatory standards such as PCI DSS, and ensuring that the application complies with these standards is important. Compliance testing should be performed to ensure that the application meets these standards.

- Collaborate With Stakeholders

Collaborating with stakeholders such as developers, business analysts, and end-users can help ensure the application is tested thoroughly. Stakeholders can provide valuable insights into the application’s functionality and help identify critical testing areas.

Conclusion

Testing banking applications is a critical process that ensures that the application is functional, secure, and meets the user’s requirements. The testing process involves several types of testing.

To ensure that the application is tested thoroughly, a risk-based approach should be used, real-life scenarios should be tested, automation testing should be used, and compliance with regulatory standards should be ensured.

Collaborating with stakeholders can also ensure that the application is tested thoroughly. By following these best practices, banking applications can be tested thoroughly and ensure they meet user expectations.

Source: https://lifestyleug.com/a-guide-to-testing-banking-applications/

15 Benefits of Automated Testing in App Development

Robert Martin — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 09:20:38 +0000

Introduction

Testing an application is an essential step involved in product development. Organizations focus on repeating the various tests in the development cycle to ensure the best quality. The main testing methods used by technical teams worldwide are manual testing and automated testing. Organizations use automated testing for certain processes, but they mainly depend on manual testing. Globally, an average of only 15% of tests were automated, according to the World Quality Report. Although test automation tools are used by many companies, they still are not able to leverage the benefits of test automation in the development process. Executing manual tests requires a lot of human effort to compare the results with the expected behavior and record the results. As the source code changes, testers have to repeat the entire testing process in manual testing. In addition to that, it is prone to human errors and difficult to execute on various platforms.

In the present world, organizations cannot compromise on speed and time. As the markets are getting competitive, companies need to evolve to deliver their products and updates faster. To achieve faster development cycles, using test automation tools in the development and testing process is necessary. With the help of test automation, testers can perform thousands of different and lengthy test cases and increase the depth of tests to improve the quality of applications. It also enhances testing accuracy with minimal human intervention. Generally, a testing framework is adopted by organizations to automate the testing processes. The main testing frameworks followed by software companies are keyword-driven framework, data-driven framework, linear automation framework, and modular-based testing framework.

HeadSpin enables automated testing by integrating the CI/CD pipeline of the testing teams with our solutions, and the HeadSpin Platform can be configured to KPIs as per customers’ needs. This will always keep the DevOps process of organizations aligned with customers’ needs.

Manual vs. Automated Testing

Let’s check some of the significant differences between manual testing and automated testing:

Manual testing is performed manually by QA analysts, whereas in automated testing, tests are performed automatically with the help of test automation tools where human involvement is not required.
Manual testing is a method where the testers have to take care of everything from test creation and test execution to analysis, whereas, with test automation tools, testers can write test scripts and then automate the test execution and generate the report.
Manual testing cannot be 100% accurate, as there is always a possibility of human error, whereas automated testing is reliable because it is code- and script-based.
Manual testing provides less test coverage than automated testing, as it can execute more test cases.
Manual testing is time-consuming, whereas automated testing is faster and more efficient than manual testing.

Core Benefits of Automated Testing

In the modern world, automated testing has transformed software development, and it has been the main reason for the explosion of apps over the past decade. Let’s look at the major benefits of automated testing that helps organizations speed up their testing and development processes.

1. Faster Feedback Cycle

With test automation, organizations can reduce the time needed to complete a feedback cycle for new software features. If the testers can provide input about the software to the development team faster, then the development team can fix the bugs in the code more quickly. By increasing the speed of the feedback cycle, companies can eliminate the risk of releasing buggy software. As test automation helps testers detect software bugs in the early stages, they can correct those bugs in the development stage itself. Thus, this will accelerate the software development process.

2. Testing on Multiple Platforms in Parallel

Cross-browser compatibility is an important feature that needs to be checked during the software development process. As many browsers are available in the market, manually testing software on all browsers manually is a tedious process. With test automation tools, testers can create countless test cases to perform cross-browser testing. Hence, the testing team can complete the cross-browser testing of a software application on various browsers, operating systems, and devices quickly and simultaneously.

3. Reusability of Test Scripts

As developing test cases take a lot of time and effort, the reusability of test scripts is a major advantage of automated testing. In order to test new operating systems or devices, testers always have to create distinct test scripts for each cross-browser test. The reusability of automated test scripts enables testers to optimize their time better while testing.

An advantage of using Appium and HeadSpin together while automating the testing procedure is recording testers' actions and translating them into code snippets, which they can use in their scripts. This feature will help minimize the effort of manual coding.

4. Easy Data-driven Testing

One of the critical benefits of test automation is data-driven testing. With data-driven testing, testers can evaluate all functionalities involving numerous data sets. Some of the significant advantages of data-driven testing that help testers to accelerate the application delivery pipeline include:

Enables the reuse of functions and actions in testing
Stores verification and test data in a single file and separates them from the test case logic
Minimizes the number of test scripts and cases
Saves all test scripts in a single repository

Data-driven analysis is one of the prime features of the HeadSpin Platform. With our Platform, enterprises can collect 120+ data points to analyze the performance and experience of their applications.

5. Test Insights

While testing applications manually, testers need to share the inputs of the tests with each other manually to understand how many test scripts have been written and what all errors have been fixed. This can create confusion among the testers and delay the whole testing process. The test insights generated using test automation tools can guide the testing teams in tracking the entire process. With these automatically generated insights, technical teams can reduce the possibility of human errors. Testers can also use these insights to plan their testing process upfront.

6. Maximum Test Coverage

Achieving 100% test coverage for complicated applications is very challenging for testers. In manual testing, this becomes more difficult, as it is hard to manage many test cases simultaneously. Automating the testing processes can be an apt solution to this problem. Test automation tools can support the testers by providing additional test coverage and assisting them in testing features like UI, databases, and servers. These tools will enable testers to improve the quality of applications without affecting the functionality. Moreover, with 100% test coverage, testing teams can analyze the previous and current releases and track every build cycle and project fixes.

7. 24X7 Test Execution

Compared to manual testing, the significant benefit of test automation is the flexibility to perform testing at any time of the day. As manual testing requires human efforts, it is impossible to execute tests 24X7. Automated testing enables testers to schedule automated test execution remotely at any time of the day. With the help of automated testing tools, testing teams can generate detailed reports with insights into the tests that have been run for the analysis of applications at any time of the day as per their convenience.

8. Scalability

When organizations have to perform a large number of test cases manually, they need to expand their workforce accordingly. However, in the case of automated testing, the process is highly scalable, as most of the testing is done automatically. Even though the testing is performed automatically, minimal human supervision is required in this process. According to the World Quality Report (2021-22), an efficient and scalable test automation strategy uses AI/ML for dynamic scope selection, detects errors and code backlogs, improves test coverage, and offers better control and transparency over the testing process while reducing test cycles, security concerns, and risks.

9. Low Business Costs and Better Utilization of Human Resources

Although automating the testing processes can be a large investment for enterprises, it can reduce their overall operational cost through effective resource utilization. With test automation tools, companies need a very small workforce to perform the testing process. As there is a lack of workforce for performing the high-level tasks for companies, such as planning and product management, companies can utilize their workforce to perform such tasks. These factors will help organizations to achieve better efficiency and profitability.

10. Enhance the Quality of Manual Testing

Test automation is not an alternative to manual testing, as many testing processes require human supervision and effort. However, automating certain tasks can definitely help testers to improve the quality of applications and reduce the time to market. Most test automation software tools are used to validate manual testing. The major advantage of automation testing is the easing of stressful activity of manual testers, so they get time and bandwidth for innovating with better test scenarios. Thus, manual testing is always the base for test automation.

11. Effective Smoke Testing

Although smoke testing is recommended as a best practice in the testing process, many organizations avoid it to improve the bandwidth of testers. Test automation tools are used to automate smoke testing that needs human efforts. Thus, test automation helps testers evaluate the stability of a software build by performing automated smoke testing for successful build validation. The datasets required for performing smoke tests are generated automatically, thus, allowing the stability of software builds to be determined faster.

12. Better Regression Testing

Performing manual regression testing for applications is a tedious process. In this type of testing, testers need to repeatedly test a set of similar test cases to ensure that error is fixed. This has been a critical pain point for developers/testers for a long time. Repeated testing can create a delay in the software release and reduce the efficiency of testers. Automated regression testing is the perfect solution for this problem. As test automation tools can perform testing 24X7, the time needed for performing regression testing can always be extended. The time and effort used to build automated test cases is a one-time investment, which will help organizations to increase their profitability.

With HeadSpin’s automated regression testing, QA experts can compare their applications build-over-build. Our solutions will help testing teams reduce the overall regression cycle time and cost involved in the testing process.

13. Reduce the Time to Release

One of the main benefits of test automation is speeding up application development cycles. By automating the testing process, testers are able to test new features very quickly. As automated testing can reduce the time taken to complete feedback cycles, strong inter-departmental communication is established across the test environment. With proper feedback being communicated effectively, each team is able to speed up their process. Thus, this will result in the reduction of applications' time to release.

14. Execute Lengthy Test Scenarios

While performing manual testing, various test scenarios may have recurring and lengthy procedures. By using test automation software tools, testers can execute exceedingly complicated and lengthy test scenarios easily and rapidly 24X7. With automated testing scripts, testers can complete long test scenarios in lesser time compared to manual testing.

15. Achieve Excellent Return on Investment (ROI)

With only manual testing, software development teams take considerable time to develop and launch applications. Moreover, due to repetitive manual quality tests, there can be a delay in the release of the software or its feature. These factors can affect the return on investment of organizations. Automated testing can shorten the product release time by automating all repetitive operations and requiring fewer resources, thus, resulting in a high return on investment.

Conclusion

With the right combination of test automation tools and proper planning of testing processes, test automation can be the future of software testing. As the software market is evolving rapidly, the need for automating the testing processes is also rising. Currently, organizations are making the shift from complete manual testing to a hybrid testing environment to leverage the automated testing benefits, like faster releases, automated repetitive tasks, reduced time for regression testing, enhanced test coverage, and 24×7 availability. This type of testing approach will give confidence to developers, management, and customers alike.

With HeadSpin's solutions, testers can automate the testing process and leverage the Platform's unique features. The key differentiators of HeadSpin are:

Artificial Intelligence: HeadSpin has 44+ ML models for human perception and performance issue recommendation
Automatability through APIs: Comprehensive library of REST-based APIs to enable multiple workflows without any user intervention
Extensive Device Support: Thousands of devices are deployed in 90+ locations worldwide to enable testing in real user conditions

First Seen At: https://www.headspin.io/blog/15-benefits-of-automated-testing-in-app-development

How Does Appium Facilitate Mobile App Testing Across Multiple Operating Systems?

Robert Martin — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 05:19:08 +0000

In today's rapidly growing world of mobile technology, mobile apps have emerged as the most sought-after software solutions, thanks to the increasing number of smartphone users. However, with app development comes the crucial process of testing. In this regard, mobile test automation with Appium has gained significant popularity as the go-to choice for mobile application testing across multiple operating systems. Its user-friendly interface and adherence to industry standards have made it the preferred automation test technique.

Let's delve into what exactly Appium is and explore the reasons behind its widespread adoption in the mobile app testing realm.

What Are the Benefits of Cross-platform Mobile App Testing?

The ability to perform mobile app testing across multiple operating systems offers several benefits, including:

Increased Test Coverage: With Appium, testers can verify the functionality, usability, and performance of their mobile applications on different platforms. This broad coverage helps identify platform-specific issues and ensures a consistent user experience across various operating systems.

Time and Cost Efficiency: By leveraging cross-platform testing, testers can reuse the same test scripts and automate the testing process for multiple operating systems. This significantly reduces the effort as well as time required to test applications individually on each platform. It also helps save costs associated with maintaining separate testing infrastructures for different operating systems.

Consistent Test Results: Appium's cross-platform capability ensures consistent behavior and test results across different platforms. Testers can compare the application's performance and functionality across various operating systems, making it easier to identify and address any inconsistencies or platform-specific bugs.

Flexibility for Developers: Appium's cross-platform support allows developers to work with their preferred operating system while ensuring the application's compatibility across multiple platforms. They can develop and test applications on their local machines, regardless of the target platform, enhancing productivity and flexibility in the development process.

How Does Appium Enable Cross-platform Mobile App Testing?

One of the critical advantages of Appium is its cross-platform capability, which enables mobile app testing across multiple operating systems such as Windows, iOS, and Android. Here's how Appium achieves this:

Platform Independence: Appium is designed to be platform-independent, allowing testers to write their test scripts once and run them on different operating systems without modification. This means that the same test codebase can be used for testing an application on iOS, Android, or Windows devices, saving time and effort for the testing team.

Common API: Appium provides a common API (Application Programming Interface) that abstracts the underlying operating system details. It utilizes the WebDriver protocol, which is a standardized protocol for interacting with web browsers. Appium extends this protocol to support mobile devices, making it possible to write tests using standard WebDriver commands and execute them across multiple platforms.

WebDriver Compatibility: Appium leverages the Selenium WebDriver framework, widely used for web application testing, to interact with mobile devices. By leveraging WebDriver, Appium can communicate with the underlying operating system's automation technologies (such as Apple's UIAutomation for iOS and Google's UiAutomator or Espresso for Android). This compatibility allows Appium to provide a unified interface for testing applications on different platforms.

Native and Web Context Switching: Appium supports seamless switching between native and web contexts during testing. Native contexts refer to the application's native user interface, while web contexts refer to web views or web-based components within a hybrid application. Appium allows testers to switch between these contexts, enabling comprehensive testing of both native and web elements within a single test session.

Multiple Language Support: Appium supports various programming languages, including Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, C#, and more. This language flexibility empowers testers to write tests in their preferred language and execute them on different operating systems without language-specific modifications. Testers can leverage their programming skills and choose the language best suits their team's needs.

A Detailed Explanation of How Appium Works Across Multiple Operating Systems

Appium automates the interaction with applications by leveraging the inherent behavior of UI components like buttons, text boxes, and links. This enables testers to write and execute tests repeatedly, ensuring consistent and reliable testing across multiple sessions. With Appium, the testing process becomes efficient and reusable, providing a solid foundation for thorough and consistent application testing.

Why Is Appium a Powerful Framework for Android Testing?

Here is a concise breakdown of how Appium operates on the Android platform:

The Appium client establishes a connection with the HTTP server, utilizing the JSON Wire Protocol as the communication channel.
The Appium server receives requests from the client component, serving as the intermediary for communication between the client and the mobile automation framework.
The server establishes a connection with the mobile automation framework specific to Android, such as UI Automator or Selendroid.
Android devices are equipped with a bootstrap.jar file, which acts as a conduit between the Appium server and the devices. This file contains executable components that enhance the connection and facilitate the secure transmission of test commands to Android devices. It assumes the role of a TCP server.
The bootstrap.jar file utilizes the Android automation frameworks (UI Automator or Selendroid) to execute the received command requests on the connected Android device.
The test results are subsequently sent back to the Appium server, which in turn sends corresponding HTTP responses to the Appium client. These responses include status codes indicating the success or potential errors encountered during the process.

What Is the Working Principle of Appium on iOS Devices?

Here is a concise overview of how Appium operates on the iOS platform:

The Appium client establishes a connection with the HTTP server, utilizing the JSON Wire Protocol as the communication standard.
The Appium server receives requests from the client component, acting as the central hub for communication between the client and the mobile automation framework.
The server establishes a connection with the mobile automation framework specific to iOS devices, known as XCUI Test.
iOS devices are equipped with a bootstrap.js file, which serves as a crucial intermediary between the Appium server and the iOS devices. This file contains executable components that enhance the connection and facilitate the secure transmission of test commands to iOS devices. It assumes the role of a TCP server.
The bootstrap.js file utilizes XCUI Test, the iOS automation framework, to execute the received command requests on the connected iOS device.
The test results are then transmitted back to the Appium server, which in turn sends corresponding HTTP responses to the Appium client. These responses include status codes that indicate the success or potential errors encountered during the test execution.
Learn more: A Comprehensive Guide to Choosing Between Appium and XCTest (UI) for iOS App Testing

How HeadSpin's Appium-integrated Testing Platform Empowers Organizations to Perform Test Automation on Multiple Operating Systems

HeadSpin offers a cutting-edge AI-powered platform that ensures secure and scalable solutions for testing and debugging mobile, web, audio, and video applications across various devices, browsers, and networks. HeadSpin's experts provide professional consulting services to assist businesses in selecting the optimal mobile automation testing framework tailored to meet the specific needs of your enterprise.

With HeadSpin's Appium automation testing for cross-platform apps, you can:

Simplify the entire CI/CD process, effortlessly create robust Appium scripts, and minimize the intricacies of test frameworks.
Enable parallel testing on multiple mobile devices, guaranteeing optimal app performance across diverse devices, networks, and global locations.
Conduct app testing on real remote devices in actual locations, accelerating development by up to 10 times, and effortlessly pinpoint and resolve critical bugs.
Utilize browser compatibility testing tools and capture real-time feedback for enhanced testing efficiency.

As users expect highly functional and engaging apps, it is essential to conduct mobile test automation with Appium prior to app releases. By running Appium tests on real Android devices, testers can ensure that apps perform as intended in real-world user conditions. HeadSpin offers a cloud-based global device infrastructure, granting testers instant access to real Android, iOS, and Windows devices. This efficient solution saves time, allowing testers to meet deadlines more quickly without the need for additional setup.

Summing Up

Based on the comprehensive information provided in this blog, it is evident that Appium holds a substantial market share in mobile test automation. Offering compatibility with a wide array of devices and operating system versions, Appium testing stands out as the top choice among available options. Developers and testers unanimously agree that creating Appium tests is straightforward and offers flexible implementation.

Discover the advantages of cross-platform compatibility and user-friendliness with HeadSpin's exceptional Appium test automation solution.

Originally Published at: https://www.headspin.io/blog/mobile-test-automation-with-appium-for-multiple-os

How IoT Testing is Transforming Banking and Finance Service

Robert Martin — Wed, 31 May 2023 21:20:55 +0000

The Internet of Things or IoT involves three components: devices, computing, and communications. IoT is heterogeneous in that these three components work together for intelligent decision-making. IoT strives for interoperability. Devices include objects that can connect to the Internet; communication happens through Wi-Fi or satellites; computation happens in a central location on the server.

What is IoT Testing?

Since the IoT network communicates in real-time, security and performance issues can negatively impact the rest of the network. It is essential to detect any problem areas before you release the product to the users.

IoT testing helps ensure problem detection early on by validating the product’s performance, security, and functionality. However, IoT is a fragmented system which can cause difficulties during testing. You can meet these difficulties by having teams test banking applications and different components or an automation tool to help you do the same.

How IoT Testing Will Open New Avenues For Banking

- IoT Implementation

IoT testing will help perfect IoT implementation. For banking and finance, this is a significant benefit. IoT can help these industries make their services available to their users on multiple devices. Users can access their bank accounts from any device that has a digital interface and connects to the Internet.

IoT will also enable users to perform tasks that are now paper-based or in-person digitally. This change will help banks improve process speeds and keep users happy.

- New Leasing Models

IoT testing can help track the wear and tear of assets, asset usage, and idle time. These metrics provide vital data points on leased assets. Tracking these metrics for banks and financial service providers can help them develop new leasing models – turning traditional products into services.

- Seamless Customer Onboarding

Banks can derive information that would help their credit assessment processes by knowing their customers’ financial behavior. Their digital footprint, which IoT can track, offers a comprehensive view of the customer’s financial behavior and could provide insights into other

usage patterns of various devices. Looking at people’s Facebook / Gmail IDs or email addresses to log in to most services may soon be extended to have a unique biometric signature used for most transactions. This universal digital identity allows banks to create personalized experiences with the data they capture.

- Automated Payment

Automated payments will transform the payment systems of finance companies, retailers, and technology manufacturers. The opportunity is immense: when machines can perform transactions with machines in real-time on a marginal cost basis, the traditional concept of payments will become obsolete. Test automation platforms can empower machines can perform transactions through the Internet of Things (IoT) and, in some cases, at negligible costs. By integrating payments into the larger economy, automated payments can create value for everyone by saving time, enhancing convenience and efficiency for users, reducing operational costs for businesses, and improving security for their data infrastructure.

- Risk Mitigation

Today, tracking high-value goods delivery is already a reality in the trade finance space. However, with the advent of IoT, the tracking mechanism can be extended to include tracking asset properties such as temperature and other parameters associated with the specific shipment involved. For example, if a shipment has temperature-sensitive goods such as pharmaceuticals or medicinal molecules, creating an alert system to trigger when one or more parameters reach an extreme value could result in risk mitigation. IoT testing can help these systems run well and help banks make informed decisions for trade finance scenarios.

- Insurance

Insurance Devices that plug into the onboard diagnostic port of cars and transmit information about driving behavior are now available from businesses. However, cutting-edge solutions from companies like Tesla Motors promise to advance digitization in the automotive sector to a new level. Even the Linux-based operating system in Tesla Cars allows for “over the air” feature updates. Digitization will allow insurance companies to provide tailored insurance to clients based on their driving styles, engine health, and general vehicle wear and tear.

Benefits of IoT

By integrating connected gadgets, people can use the system to build good financial habits.
Through IoT, banks can connect their services to user wearables. These wearables can alert users of pending payments or deadlines.
IoT makes business process automation, customer management, new avenues of payment, and much more possible.
IoT systems can help banks automatically disable user cards in case of cancellation or late payments, transfer asset ownership, handle requests, and more.
Banks can use IoT to process loans instantly and monitor collaterals; this will help deliver seamless user experiences.

Conclusion

IoT implementation is picking pace with the advent of 5G and technological advancements. According to Statista, by 2023, the IoT market value is set to rise to more than a trillion dollars.

For the banking and financial service providers, this means translating data from IoT into useful information to help them make educated decisions.

Source: https://www.uplarn.com/how-iot-testing-is-transforming-banking-and-finance-service/

Why to Consider A Digital Experience Monitoring Strategy for Your Enterprise

Robert Martin — Fri, 19 May 2023 16:43:31 +0000

Digital experience monitoring solutions (DEM) help optimize the content that organizations have on their platforms. With a proper DEM strategy, communication with employees and the end audience becomes smooth, direct, and trouble-free. The overall performance can see a drastic improvement when they tap into the many benefits which DEM offers.

Digital Experience Monitoring: a basic understanding

Digital experience monitoring leverages technological advancement to push beyond performance monitoring strategies. Here the focus is on the end-user interactions with the applications. It enables leaders and employers to observe and then analyze the interactions between digital agents, as either individual, businesses, or communities. In today's digital ecosystem, it is of utmost importance to keep DEM in mind to guarantee a satisfactory end-user experience for your applications.

Studies show that companies have become necessary to monitor stakeholders' experiences.

Why is it necessary to have a Digital Experience Monitoring strategy?

To answer the question, in short, four things can be mentioned to get the discussion started:

It provides analytics, is helpful for machine learning deep learning, and leverages the internet of things (IoT) which can definitively improve User Experience (UX).
Your digital platform needs to be updated regularly and optimized so that communication and transactions can be carried out smoothly, without roadblocks.
You can manage the quality of your performance by comparing it against your competitors. The results of this analysis can then be used as a guide on how to do better when employing digital performance best practices.
You can build stronger connections with your company's stakeholders, including clients, customers, and employees.

This article aims to dig deeper into six main reasons why today, it is essential for companies to invest in a proper DEM Strategy. We will try to look at each of these benefits in some detail.

The reasons why DEM strategies are beneficial

Useful data is generated

Firstly, using a DEM Strategy is analytics' dream. Observing the different interactions that customers and other end-users have with each application leads to the generation of valuable and helpful data. The extensive metrics which come out of this endeavor help leaders to calculate end-to-end network and device KPIs. Mainly defined user journey or user persona interactions are included here. Customized especially for your application, these insights are powerful. They are powered by AI and can undoubtedly lead to the success of an organization.

This generated data is also objective in nature. Not to downplay the role of subjective data in any way, but for determining customer demands and improving UI and UX, there is a great need for objective data, mainly so that user journeys and instances can be recorded and generalized in a considerable number – this makes making predictions easier. For details of data like:

trends of behavior
personalized demands and requirements
insights arrived at through neural network algorithms
content management control
omnichannel customer experience management
properly timed alerts
agreement compliance at the service level
monitoring of integrated technologies
monitoring of unified communications
control of and timely updates to social media channels

IT Visibility and machine interactions

Coming back to the data which was generated from the metrics arrived at through this process, it provides leaders and employers with enough information to understand the end-user experience in great detail. Your unique user personas become more and more visible to the IT teams, who then can strive to improve the experience of the customers/employees.

Further, DEM helps keep a record of how machine interactions unravel. The ultimate and primary customer indeed remains a human, but it is also a reality that many applications developed today face machines as their end-user. This development necessitates a look into machine-to-machine interactions to avoid any bad reviews or loss of clients. With more companies relying on machines to ensure the absence of human flaws, an effective DEM strategy that also takes machine interactions into cognizance becomes unavoidable.

Staying relevant

The demands of digital customers are ever-increasing, and it is not an option to be behind other organizations of your kind. Since the present economic scenario demands most end-customers to be digitally connected, gathering performance insights of UI is invaluable. If you do it better, which means with more data and research, you naturally gain a competitive advantage.

More than 33% of organizations admit to using a dedicated DEM strategy.

Opting to invest in any strategy assumes the one goal of productivity and positive transformation, and embracing such transformations as the trends of the time demand is the key to achieving success. Getting rid of glitches, lessening load time, and debugging applications for a better experience helps retain customers and prevent revenue loss. Marching towards technological advances is smart, and looking ahead and beyond the capacities of one's company is advantageous and good practice as well.

The perspective of the user

As a customer: As an end-user, there is no way for those who use your application to know what goes on at the backend, how issues develop and how they are solved. Therefore, they expect that only the best interface and experience will greet them when they interact with different elements across multiple locations. If there is constant monitoring of these interactions, and improved KPI will lead to a much better customer experience overall.
As an employee: User interaction is as helpful for employees as it is for an enterprise's customers. If the people working in your organizations are faced with fewer problems that can be troubleshot easily, they can perform their daily tasks easily and quickly. Their productivity generally increases. If potential issues are spotted earlier on or predicted, severe problems which affect the revenue situation can be avoided. When employees are satisfied, retention rates also increase along with productivity and recruitment rates. Minor improvements like VDI right-sizing, automated fixes, hardware refreshes, and software rationalization can go long.

Good returns of investments

A Digital Experience Monitoring strategy would entail asset optimization, service desk improvements, and license management as well. This saves much money- the count can go up to hundreds, thousands, and even millions. The deep, objective data gathered and analyzed and the expanded visibility have much value in terms of time and money.

Research shows that using DEM strategies can reduce incident resolution time drastically.

Saving time and going Agile

Choosing fewer protocols, but wisely, is the key. An application cannot use a single protocol, but it is also vital to ensure that all those in use are monitored. If you decide to opt for a solution that only monitors HTTP, gaps may be left in your monitoring strategy. Ensure that the tools you use to address all protocols (like FTP or WebSockets) are relevant. If smooth running is ensured, much time can also be saved, and thus, resources may be optimized. For this, consulting a seasoned digital experience software partner can be recommended.

Since updates and releases keep coming at higher rates, it is wise to have a DEM strategy in place to optimize Agile technology to its fullest. An Agile development environment requires that companies keep testing their applications, but with increased testing and coding changes, performance issues may arise, leading to degradation. If the coders and developers are informed about these problems sooner, faster solutions may be expected. Challenges occurring while testing, followed by the Real User Monitoring (RUM), can be dealt with through a sound DEM strategy solution.

Conclusion

Today, the performance of applications is much more than just page load time. What is most important now is how the end-users perceive the interface. The onus of measuring usability has shifted to the overall functionality and performance of the application. Customers care about interaction, and thus, things like the following becomes essential:

Speed index
Perceptual speed index
Critical resources index

This is where user experience monitoring strategies can help. The market for DEM has been rising exponentially, as the need for remote communications and transactions has increased. Getting user attention and retaining it enough so that all stakeholders remain loyal is the primary concern for businesses now. For this, delivering the best user experience is the only thing that can be trusted. Building long-lasting, meaningful communications with employees and customers are the only way to run a successful business, and in this day and age, that depends entirely upon how good your digital platforms are.

Visibility is king- users only consider what they can see, interact with, and get responses from. Using Digital Experience Monitoring tools to map user journeys and troubleshoot problems when they appear is honestly the only way to prevent loss of clients. The whole enterprise of ensuring a good consumer experience has been simplified through DEM strategies.

HOW AUTOMATION HAS REVAMPED THE BANKING INDUSTRY

Robert Martin — Fri, 12 May 2023 06:43:11 +0000

Whether we talk about front-end or back-end operations, the advancement in digital technology has dramatically scaled the banking sector. As technology proliferates, automation has become the new normal globally. It has made so many tasks in different industries less resource and time-intensive that every sector has adopted it.

Fortunately, automation hasn’t left the banking industry untouched and has dramatically impacted how banks operate for their customers, employees, and overall ROI. Considering that banking is an industry with heavy dependency on agility, precision, and accuracy, automation is a blessing in disguise.

Mobile app automation testing has resulted in numerous customers using mobile banking to make transfers, seek customer support, and check their balances. Many banking businesses have invested in Artificial Intelligence and other advanced analytics to make maximum automation an everyday reality.

While it comes with its unique set of challenges, automated processes such as banking domain application testing have reduced error rates, improved customer experience, and freed up employees’ time for high-value tasks. This post will look at how automation has revamped the banking industry. Let’s dive right in.

7 WAYS IN WHICH AUTOMATION HAS REVAMPED THE BANKING INDUSTRY

Remember the days when you dropped cash right outside the bank in a designated container, and they sucked it up via a tube? The money was piled on a desk handled by an employee who talked to customers through an intercom. Cool, isn’t it?

It was just one example of how the innovative nature of the banking industry used to be a big thing. But if we talk about the next one, automation certainly takes the lead. Here are some top ways in which automation has revamped the banking industry. Let’s take a look.

1. AN ORGANIZED AND WELL-SORTED DATA ACCESS

Sorting, organizing, and managing financial data can make or break a business considering the sensitive nature of the information. When banks automated data processes, it offers streamlined and secure customer access and gives employees the necessary sorted details to boost their productivity.

By eliminating laborious and repetitive tasks, employees get a chance to concentrate on core tasks, whereas mundane tasks accomplish themselves with negligible supervision. Automation contributes to a robust IT infrastructure that further accelerates productivity.

2. PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION

When a banking business automates critical tasks, it eliminates the risk of manual errors and avoids losses for a bank. Moreover, advanced analytics such as better scoring techniques, updated data sources, and enhanced data quality further offer their own sets of unique benefits.

3. RISK MANAGEMENT AND MITIGATION

Every latest loan operation strictly complies with individual risk appetite. A strategy based on automation also discourages subjective interpretation. Banks increase the responsiveness of their interface when they rapidly implement automation. This way, they can avoid repetitive losses and problems such as credit card fraud.

Plus, by reducing human error, automation eliminates multiple inconsistencies and helps banks achieve high precision and accuracy. After all, why wait for drastic consequences to a mistake when you can stop them in the first place?

4. IMPROVE AND STREAMLINE WORKFLOW

Automation helps streamline and improve a company’s workflow by enabling accountants to indulge themselves in complex tasks as automation takes over routine tasks. Usually, it takes somewhere around two or three weeks to compile documents and spreadsheets. The financial close cycle takes more time without automation if we count reviews and approvals. But when employees can free themselves from manually matching and balancing transactions, the workload gets more manageable.

5. SAY NO TO DATA BREACHES

When a system is under attack, it increases its chances of getting affected by data breaches. Not only do they cost banks in terms of revenue and regulatory files, but they also breach the customer’s trust, which can be catastrophic in the long run. Automation helps banking institutions stay ahead of such cyber attacks and ensure customer security at the same time. After all, since banks store sensitive information, they are top in the hit list of hackers and attackers.

6. HELLO, PAPERLESS PROCESSES!

Handling tonne paperwork is a headache for anyone. Automation leads to creating data-driven rules that pave the way toward completely paperless working. Electronic banking applications no longer require extensive paperwork, from data storage to filling forms and other customer services. Another issue it keeps at bay is for employees to deal with the interpretation of tricky handwriting.

7. FASTEN THE PACE OF ACCOUNT RECONCILIATIONS

Ensuring the reconciliation of all balances is a highly-repeated process. Banks have an end number of transactions every day, and manual processing of spreadsheets increases the reconciliation turnaround. Correcting imbalances and dealing with investigations extend that timeline.

But when banking automation software comes into the picture, you can significantly shorten the time taken for post-transactional activities. Banks no longer have to take a lot of days, weeks, or months to a part of close, thanks to accelerated reconciliations.

CONCLUSION

The most valuable thing all these advantages add up to is an increased competitive advantage. Combined with cloud access, the banking sector can bring in decision-making and applications all in one place.

Besides all the benefits mentioned above, automation enables banks to implement changes quickly, use dynamic pricing, and proactively manage their customers’ no wonder automation has become the future of the banking industry and many others.

The modern-day customer is busy 24/7. They don’t have much time to visit the brick-and-mortar branch very often. When banks automate as many things as possible, customers can carry out most of the banking-related tasks from the comfort of their homes.

Moreover, if a bank is using a leading automation testing platform, banks don’t have to worry about customers finding bugs in their mobile apps. Moreover, it frees up the time for testers to step into the customer’s shoes and thoroughly check for any possible remaining bottlenecks. Before you test banking applications, it is vital to jot down priorities and preferably choose a platform that covers every aspect of testing under a single umbrella.

Originally Published:https://edumanias.com/business-news/how-automation-has-revamped-the-banking-industry/

Free Tools for Mobile App Performance Testing with Appium

Robert Martin — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 18:44:14 +0000

Hardly any modern-day organization would think of functioning without a mobile application. Over 60% of businesses have an app or are in the process of developing one. However, building an app isn’t enough. You must test it across various performance parameters to ensure that it fulfills performance expectations and provides the desired experience to users.

Appium is a mobile app testing automation tool that makes app testing easy. Let’s take a look at how performance testing with Appium works, and what are some free tools that one can also use -

‍Benefits of Mobile App Performance Testing

Mobile app performance testing has many benefits. From enhancing the overall performance of an app, to making it more robust, and improving user experience. Mobile app performance testing allows to -

Detect functionality or concurrence issues
Determine how much load is supported
Gauge the actions to be performed to eliminate risks
Determine the application capacity and how much it can be increased

What is Appium?

Appium is a free and open-source tool that lets you automate native and hybrid mobile/web applications. It enables you to use the same API to write tests against multiple platforms, like iOS, Android, and Windows.

Automation with Appium works similarly to Selenium. Both Appium and Selenium are cross-platform test automation frameworks. The only difference is that Selenium supports major desktop browsers and operating systems, whereas Appium is more focused on mobile platforms.

Here are some reasons to use Appium for mobile testing automation.

Free and open-source
Enables testing of native and hybrid applications for desktop and mobile
Offers support for numerous programming languages, including Python, Java, Ruby, and more
Allows cross-platform testing on real devices, simulators, and emulators

Free Tools for App Testing with Appium

There are various free and open-source libraries and programs that you can use for performance testing with Appium. Here’s a look at some of the best programs -

Tcpdump

tcpdump is a network analyzer program and protocol analysis tool based on the libpcap interface. It runs under a command-line interface and allows you to display packets like TCP/IP over a computer system. tcpdump is a free software tool distributed under the BSD license.

This program is available under most Unix/Linux-based operating systems. It lets you save captured packets in pcap format for future analysis.
This packet analyzer helps you track and analyze the network traffic. Thus, it comes as a handy tool when resolving and troubleshooting network issues.
A tcpdump is used in specific applications such as to intercept and display another computer’s or user’s communication. It is also helpful in viewing account credentials of users acting as routers through which unencrypted data like telnet or HTTP passes.

Wireshark

Wireshark is an open-source packet analyzer tool used for network analysis and troubleshooting and software and communications protocols development. It allows you to capture data on the local network and save it for offline analysis.

Wireshark can gather network traffic from the following connections: Bluetooth, Wireless, Ethernet, Token Ring, and Frame Relay.

Wireshark, too, runs on the libpcap format, and hence, it can exchange network traces with tcpdump, CA NetMaster, and other applications using the same format.

Some salient features of Wireshark are:

Capture data from a live network connection
Read live data from multiple network types
Browse captured data using a GUI or terminal
Edit or capture converted files using command-line switches
Refine data display using a display filter
Create plug-ins for dissecting new protocols
Detect VoIP calls in the captured traffic
Capture raw USB traffic
Filter wireless connection
Assign settings, filters, and timers to filter the output

Wireshark allows mobile applications to learn about the network traffic layers used by applications if the application goes direct without honoring proxy settings. The http traffic can be observed to find and fix configuration issues by working at the network traffic level instead of the proxy.

Advanced Network Profiling

The Android Profiler by Google is a replacement for Android Monitor tools in Android Studio 3.0 and higher. It provides real-time insights into how an app uses memory, CPU, battery, and network. It is compatible with Android 5.0 and higher (API level 21).

Profiling is an essential aspect of testing a mobile app’s performance. An app is said to have poor performance if it consumes a lot of power, responds slowly, or crashes/freezes. App profiling helps you determine if your app is consuming excessive device resources.

App profiling helps you track the following components of an app’s performance:

CPU usage
Memory consumption
Battery usage
Network usage

Stetho

Stetho is a free and open-source debug library for Android apps. It enables you to use chrome debugging tools to troubleshoot network traffic, making the debugging process rich and interactive for developers. You can also use the dumpapp tool to add a powerful command-line to app internals.

Stetho offers a seamless setup and integration process. Critical features of Stetho are:

Chrome DevTools
Network Inspection
Database Inspection
View Hierarchy
Dumpapp
Javascript Console
Custom dumpapp plug-ins

Mitmproxy

mitmproxy is an open-source and interactive HTTPS proxy that enables seamless HTTP and HTTPS communication.

Other tools available with mitmproxy are mitmweb and mitmdump. mitmweb is a web-based interface for mitmproxy, whereas mitmdump is mitmproxy’s command-line version. Think of it as tcpdump for HTTP.

Key features of mitmproxy are:

Intercept HTTPS and HTTP requests
Save HTTP conversations for later analysis
Replay client-side HTTP conversations of previous HTTP responses
Forward traffic to browsers with reverse proxy mode
Transparent proxy mode for Linux and macOS
SSL/TLS certifications
Make changes to HTTP traffic using Python

Conclusion

Various tools for mobile app testing are available, with Appium being one of the most popular. Mobile app performance testing with Appium lets you automate testing across mobile platforms.

Source: https://www.headspin.io/blog/free-tools-for-mobile-app-performance-testing-with-appium

Gaps to Avoid in UI Test Automation Strategy Amidst Economic Distress

Robert Martin — Sat, 11 Mar 2023 19:35:34 +0000

Customers are digitally advanced today and are highly habituated to high-quality apps with flawless user interfaces. There's no doubt that an appealing UI helps retain the user base and reduces the chances of the users switching to a competitor's platform. Hence, businesses of all scales, small, medium, and large, must ensure that their apps have a proper and responsive UI for delivering an incredible user experience with an intuitive UI.

But in order to achieve this, businesses must avoid significant gaps in their UI testing strategy to help make the UI test automation more efficient and achieve desirable outcomes.

Why is it essential to ensure a good UI in this phase of the economic downturn?

As the economic downturn becomes more severe than ever, several companies are attempting to reduce their investments in automation and testing frameworks to reduce overall costs. As a result, companies often do not adopt the advanced and updated approaches that can help improve software quality, which thereby affects the business revenue due to poor quality. Moreover, if the software has a poor user experience, it can further lead to degrading brand value and loss of revenue. And one of the primary reasons for this includes a bad UI. Thus, organizations need to value investing in certain emerging trends in UI test automation to deliver better software quality and user experience.

Gaps in UI test automation strategy

The most significant gap areas in UI test automation strategies are listed as follows -

1. Not selecting the right automation framework:

One of the most common reasons why automated UI testing fails is due to the selection of the wrong automation framework. Managers and architect teams often choose the wrong framework, which can make the automation process slower, with less accuracy that delays time-to-market and the quality of the overall user experience. Choosing the right automation framework includes evaluating what suits the organization’s goals, the team’s skill sets, the environment, and the tech stack. It is necessary to determine:

The evolving business needs and testing needs that need to be addressed
The type of application
How well the automation framework integrates into the CI/CD pipeline
The team structure and resource skill sets, and many more.

Hence, it is necessary to focus on selecting the right UI automation testing tools.

2. Relying solely on UI test automation:

An ideal situation would require the testing teams to be confident that if the entire UI automation suite is removed from the cycle, they'll be able to identify a significant section of the existing bugs across the release cycle. It is crucial to remember that high-level tests must only be the way to identify the remaining issues that were not identified on the first two levels of the agile test pyramid.

3. Investing significant time in maintaining test scripts:

Spending ample time and effort in maintaining test scripts might be an indicator of reconsidering the entire approach. This can often be due to improper planning and inefficient structuring of testing frameworks. Nonetheless, if the teams can make the tests more reusable, the maintenance time can be reduced to a great extent. Instead of making the tests large in an attempt to cover the app as much as possible, splitting them into smaller test cases is more critical. The smaller tests can be used to build out more comprehensive test cases. This makes the testing and development workflow more seamless by making it easier to reuse the components when the UI or user flow changes.

4. Inefficiency parallel testing:

Parallel testing is crucial for increasing test coverage while saving time. However, often QA teams do not utilize them properly. With parallel testing, teams can easily cut down significant hours by executing tests simultaneously that help to test across multiple environments in minimal time and effort.

5. Lack of environment options:

Without enough environment options, even the best strategies for increasing test coverage can fail. Different environments can offer codes in different manners, which indicates that it is important to look at the website or application on different browsers and devices. Without testing on real devices and other platforms, it is challenging to understand user experiences across different platforms.

6. Inefficient portability of test automation framework:

Portability in the UI test automation framework is very critical. It can be challenging to run an automation framework on any machine other than the machine where it can be designed. This is a poor practice as it involves significant effort on the part of other team members. In order to avoid this, test automation files that are required for test automation should not be stored on a local machine. If the automation files are small, these can be attached to the testing framework by storing them in a control version under the testing framework.

7. Minimal mobile browser testing:

Not focusing enough on executing tests across the mobile version of the web application can make the UI test automation inefficient. The QA team needs to verify that the app also works perfectly on different devices. Without testing on real devices, evaluating the user experience when the app is used on smaller screen dimensions is difficult. Moreover, this needs to be verified sooner as it might cost significantly when mobile web usage continues to increase.

8. Ignoring risk-based approach:

While devising the UI test automation strategy, delineating where to start initially is critical. Often teams consider that the right strategy would be to add tests homogeneously across the app to reach greater test coverage. However, this could create a gap in the test automation strategy. Even with the reduction in cost associated with test automation, testing can have a high cost and require optimal resource allocation.

As the app is not homogenous, some parts of it might be relatively simple while the rest can be extremely complex, and therefore testing it homogeneously might not yield accurate outcomes. Again, changes made to the codebase are not distributed uniformly as the modules or features change frequently. Hence it is essential to prioritize riskier areas of the app while starting with the test automation. Teams should focus on the areas of the code which are at the intersection of

Highly critical features
More complex code
Portions of the codebase which face changes frequently

How HeadSpin enables companies to streamline UI test automation?

HeadSpin's data-driven test automation platform helps QA teams to test apps on real devices and capture critical KPIs that impact the UI/UX of an app, including blockiness, blurriness, slow downloads, response time, page loading time, and many others. Additionally, HeadSpin offers data analytics and dashboards for improving the UX by automatically detecting root causes of performance and functional issues and helping to resolve them proactively.

Conclusion

Embracing the right UI test automation strategy is vital for ensuring good app quality, user experiences, and enhanced brand value. While automation is not simple, it is important to consider the steps that can make UI testing efficient. Bridging the aforementioned gaps in your UI test automation strategy with UI automation tools like can help you obtain more value out of your time.

Originally Published: https://www.headspin.io/blog/gaps-in-ui-test-automation-strategy

Client-Side Performance Testing: Metrics to Consider

Robert Martin — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 20:15:53 +0000

You can conduct performance testing to ensure that the software is working properly. Software performance testing is divided into two distinct categories.

- Client-side Testing:
The scope of client-side testing is to evaluate end-to-end scenarios while evaluating the rendering of elements such as CSS and JavaScript files.

- Server-side Testing:
The scope of server-side testing is to evaluate logical scenarios, focus on the application behavior under user load, and check the server response time.

In both of these testings, experiments are run to check performance of the website. These tests check the application for bottlenecks, review the time it takes to load under different speeds, and analyze its loading speed, stability, and scalability.

In the instance of conducting client-side performance testing, what we are checking is:

How fast and efficient the application is.
The response time of a web application if the user is using the website for the first time and when they revisit the website the second time.
The time it takes to render web page elements to the users.
The time it takes for the user to interact with the first web element and the average time to display the web content.

The Objective of Client-Side Performance Testing

The objective of client-side performance testing, or any performance testing, is to ascertain, evaluate, and make necessary changes in the problem areas.

For optimal results on your client-side performance testing, you can:

Compress the images and the JS (JavaScript) code.
Provide faster response times, enable better cache techniques. JS code caching reduces the start-up time of websites.
Ensure implementation of necessary changes after evaluating the results of server-side performance testing.
Minimize HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and JavaScript content.
Remove all unused CSS and JavaScript codes.
Upgrade the server hardware to create more memory space, if needed. To study, analyze, and make necessary changes in the application, software engineers use metrics to study the key performance indicators to form a conclusion.

Metric Performance Testing

Metrics define the performance of an application by estimating the health, quality, and productivity of the software. A metric establishes the quality of the performance in quantitative terms. Studying metrics can help software engineers and web developers in the following areas:

It assists in understanding how much improvement is required and where it is required.
It helps with the early detection of problems within an application or website.
It is a determiner to check the progress of the development.
They provide critical insights about application/ software behavior.
It is a measure of quality assurance and is easy to discuss and improve upon due to its quantitative nature.
It also helps developers make important decisions, such as estimating the cost of a project and scheduling a future project.
It evaluates whether the current technology needs any modifications.

Types of Software Testing Metrics

Process Metrics: This metric defines the characteristics and execution and is essential for improving the software development life cycle.
Product Metrics: It defines a product’s performance, design, quality, and complexity to tackle its quality.
Project Metrics: It measures the overall quality of a project. It calculates the team's performance, calculates the project’s costs and defects, and estimates the deliverables.

Client-side Metrics in Performance Testing

Client-side metrics in performance testing test the application's response for different clients using different platforms such as desktop, mobile, smart TV, etc. Client-side metrics check interaction speed, location, and connection speed.

Important Client-side Metrics in Performance Testing

- Time to First Byte (TTFB)

‍Time to First Byte is a client-side metric that measures the time spent connecting with the server and downloading the site's contents. The acceptable range of TTFB is between 100-500ms (milliseconds), with anything being under 100ms is even better.
The unacceptable range of TTFB is anything more than 500ms. Developers can improve upon this by reducing HTTP requests, optimize the application code and database queries, and use a content delivery network.

- ‍CPU Idle Time

‍CPU Idle Time metric measures the amount of time the CPU was not busy and was waiting for a response from the third party.

- ‍Payload

‍In web development, the word 'payload' refers to the difference between essential information in a chunk of data and the information used to support it. In the context of malware, 'payload' refers to the transmission of malicious code via worms, phishing emails, and other mechanisms.

- ‍Time to Interact

‍Time to Interact or TTI metric measures the time it takes for a website to become fully interactive. A fully interactive page displays useful content and is responsive to user interaction within 50 milliseconds. The acceptable range of the TTI metric is between 0 and 7.3 milliseconds. Between 0-4 milliseconds, it is fast, and between 4.1-7.3 milliseconds is moderate.

The unacceptable range of the TTI metric is anything above 7.3 milliseconds which is considered slow. Some ways to improve the TTI score are reducing payloads with code splitting, decreasing JavaScript, lowering main thread work, and optimizing third-party JavaScript.

- ‍Speed Index

‍The Speed Index metric calculates the time it takes for the contents of a page to become visibly populated. They are measured in milliseconds, and the lower the score, the faster is the loading performance.

- ‍Load Time

‍The Load time metric measures the time it takes for a page to appear on your screen. It is calculated from the time you click on a link to when it finishes loading to completion. It is crucial because it determines search engine ranking and increases customer satisfaction.

You can reduce the load time by minimizing the file size, combining HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, choosing the most appropriate hosting option, and enabling browser caching.
The acceptable range of load time is a contentious subject, with users wanting the optimal time to be 3 seconds, while the average load time is 15 seconds.

- ‍Time to Render

‍This metric calculates its time to process and display elements to the users.

Conclusion

Customer satisfaction is vital when it comes to your website. Performance testing is useful for checking the usability of your website. Client-side metrics in performance testing are tools that help you in this context.

FAQs

Q1. What is client-side profiling?

A1. Client-side performance tests help verify if an application is fast and efficient enough. It involves considering a single user's point of view and checking a web application's response time.

Q2. What are some examples of performance metrics?

A2. Some examples of performance metrics are productivity, profit margin, scope, and cost. A business can track these metrics to determine if the team meets target objectives and goals. Each area of a business will have its key performance metrics.

Q3. When to use client-side and server-side testing?

A3. You can run client-side A/B testing when you deploy an internal team of marketers to run experiments without needing to change the code. You can run server-side a/b testing when the scope of an experiment is more extensive, for example, when you need to make changes at the product level.

Appium For Mobile Testing Infrastructure Setup

Robert Martin — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 20:25:15 +0000

Appium is a free, open-source test automation framework for native, mobile web, and hybrid applications. Appium mobile testing at HeadSpin automates mobile testing on real devices for analyzing and optimizing app performance under real-world conditions. With our team of highly experienced mobile test automation experts, we provide guidance for organizations, helping them establish their mobile testing strategy.

Our support for Appium test frameworks and API-driven approach ensures that you don’t have to modify any existing test scripts for mobile testing. Just decide what apps to test – Appium supports a wide variety of mobile devices to test on. Most importantly, you can create your own test scenario, from choosing the networks, locations, and types of devices to replicate real-world conditions.

Why Appium for Mobile Testing?

Mobile automation testing is integral to modern enterprises. Most tools that are available for mobile test automation require additional agents that must be compiled with most of the application code to ensure that the tool can communicate with the native mobile application. This is not the case with Appium mobile testing. The following are some of the key differences that keep Appium ahead of other open-source mobile test automation tools available today:

Appium is a cross-platform mobile application testing tool that uses JSON wire protocol internally for interacting with native applications using Selenium WebDriver.
It functions as a server and operates in the background like a Selenium server.
Appium targets tests developed using development tools regardless of the programming languages and with language-specific client libraries and Selenium WebDriver API.
You can take complete control with full access to databases from test code and back-end APIs.
It aims to automate any mobile application created in numerous programming languages with different types of frameworks.

Test on Multiple Platforms

Because it is a cross-platform solution, Appium enables cross-platform mobile testing. This means that you don’t have to set up different tests for different platforms – the same test will work on both iOS and Android. In order to communicate with iOS and Android with Selenium WebDriver, Appium makes use of the JSON wire protocol.

Fast and Reliable

Appium is compatible with most programming languages used in mobile application development. The major programming languages that can be used in conjunction with Appium include JavaScript, Ruby, Java, PHP, Node.js, C#, and Python. So, Appium offers flexibility, reliability, and versatility when it comes to mobile app development and testing. Scale with HeadSpin's Global Device Infrastructure

You can use HeadSpin’s wide range of iOS and Android devices worldwide to run Appium test automation scripts for building better app experiences. Comprehensive data from real-life scenarios enables teams to focus on not just the application, but the customer experience as well.

Use of Standard API

We recommend Appium for setting up mobile testing infrastructure because recompilation of applications or modification of codes is not required. Appium uses a standard API in all the platforms, making it effortless for creating your tests against Android and iOS platforms with the same API. However, because the UI elements vary on both iOS and Android, separate scripts are still required.

Testing Framework of Choice

Appium gives you the flexibility and freedom to use the testing frameworks of your choice. Previously, mobility teams only had two options – write tests through JavaScript with the help of the UI Automation library for Apple or UI Automator for Google. With Appium, you can use any testing framework that suits your needs.

Continuous Integration

One of the most significant benefits of using Appium for mobile testing is that it can also be used directly with Continuous Integration (CI) platforms such as Jenkin and Bamboo. Because Appium is simply a code library which can be imported in any language, it’s easy to make it work in tandem with the CI servers to deliver better results from QA testing. This not only makes the testing process fast but more efficient and productive as well.

Complete Automation

With HeadSpin, you can leverage the automated testing process. Appium allows for complete automation, which accelerates the development process. Most importantly, it will help you receive information and feedback almost instantaneously.

Appium’s structure is guided by the following tenets:

A mobile automation framework should be open-source, in practice, in spirit, and in name
A mobile automation framework should not waste a great deal of time or effort in creating something that already exists – automation APIs
You should not be locked into a particular framework or programming language to create and run your tests
You should not have to modify your application or recompile it in any manner to automate it ‍ At HeadSpin, we are dedicated to helping mobility teams make the process of mobile app development, testing, and device sharing faster and seamless by integrating our services with state-of-the-art automation tools like Appium. We can help:

Streamline the entire CI/CD process
Create robust Appium scripts with ease
Reduce the complexity of test frameworks
Support parallel testing on multiple mobile devices

Choosing the right mobile automation testing tool is the key to a successful mobile enterprise. Integrating your mobile app development process with Appium can provide you with many benefits. If you are confused about what suits you the best or are looking for help, get in touch with HeadSpin for expert consulting.

Sign up on HeadSpin and automate your mobile tests using the best open-source testing automation tool for better and faster delivery of applications.

FAQs

1. How can you determine element locators in the native Android application?

There are two ways of determining element locators. The first is the primitive way in which the driver instance is used, and the getPageSource method is called. The getPageSource will deliver a bulk string of XML representing the user interface hierarchy at the point in time we asked for it. Users can then manually inspect the XML document.

The second and much easier way is by using Appium Desktop. Users can examine the UI hierarchy with Appium desktop instead of using the page source command. The Appium Desktop is user-friendly and provides the whole XML output. It also provides a graphical representation of navigating through the app and will even suggest locator strategies and selectors for users.

2. Can an Appium server be initiated programmatically?

It is possible to start an Appium server programmatically. Typically, the commands provided at the command prompt are created in notepad and saved with the.bat extension, and clicking the bat file executes the commands.

3. How can elements be inspected in iOS applications?

You can detect elements within IOS applications using an Appium inspector, a GUI-based tool. These GUI-based tools strongly resemble the selenium IDE.

4. What is the underline API to which Appium adheres?

Appium follows the underlying selenium API to automate test cases. Since Appium includes all selenium APIs, experts suggest that Appium is an extension of selenium.

AI/ML-Based Quality Assurance for Proactive Monitoring of Customer Experience

Robert Martin — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 15:13:57 +0000

The World Quality Report 2018 by Capgemini proved that customer experience had become the top priority for QA. They predicted that constant advancements set this trend on a path of acceleration in the time to come. It holds true in 2022 and beyond. After all, automation testing has become the norm. The QA sector also seems to be thriving with the adaptation of DevOps and Agile.

The fast-paced deployment and increasing complexities of customer experience can incur huge costs. Something as trivial as a few minutes of network downtime can lead to massive revenue losses. Since there is equal focus on accuracy and quick-paced releases, conventional test automation isn’t a sustainable way to maintain the agility of QA tasks.

There has been a time when QA teams have had an excessive focus on defect detection that they failed to acknowledge how efficient defect prevention would be. That’s why for proactive monitoring of the customer experience, the implementation of AI/ML-based assurance is the need of the hour. It helps preserve time, efforts, and resources that otherwise go into letting a defect arise and then trying to fix it. Let’s take a look at this in detail.

Predict, Prevent, and Automate with AI/ML-Based Assurance

It all starts with intelligent prediction. When you supplement your regular DevOps testing with in-built AI/ML assurance solutions, proactive prediction of network issues becomes possible. This way, testing teams can eliminate their occurrences and prevent the negative impact of issues before businesses lose out on subscribers.

Every network generates loads of data. But instead of making network operations proactive, teams have continued to follow a reactive approach despite apparent disadvantages. This approach gives rise to end-to-end network issues and complex pattern recognition issues.

But once you decide to automate the management of service quality and your customer experience through AI/ML-powered automated assurance, it helps identify the root cause of a problem by detecting patterns across various data sources.

Benefits of AI/ML-Driven Assurance

AI/ML is quite useful when it comes to forecasting and determining the needs of the client. Advanced characteristics include a high-quality product, a comparative edge in business, and an enhanced user experience. Companies use Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to gain insights such as production incidents, defect reports, project documentation, test results, and test artifacts from data for the betterment of software quality.

They analyze existing data sets to predict common trends. Machine Learning leverages neural networks for Quality Assurance by using that laid algorithm collection. They follow it up by creating outputs with data inputs followed and comparing them to predetermined outcomes. AI/ML combines automation with proactivity and helps in the deployment of assistants that detect and prevent issues before an impending damage.

Here are some striking benefits.

Predicts code problems, failed and redundant test cases to provide efficiency and accuracy benefits
Speeds up regular manual testing with additional reliability, accuracy, and simplify management to save engineers’ valuable time and resources
Automates data flow and correlation across different network domains and data resources
Automatically resolves faults and issues before it affects subscribers
Prevents bugs from slipping through the cracks, thanks to AI/ML enabled data analysis that allows testers to learn from previous bug patterns in the code

*Improving Quality Assurance By Proactive Monitoring of Customer Experience Through AI/ML *

The main target of improving Quality Assurance by proactive monitoring of customer experience through AI/ML is to eliminate overlaps in test coverage, make testing predictable, and focus on preventing defects instead of detecting and fixing them later.

Machine Learning algorithms facilitate traversing of code to detect functionality changes and relate those changes to original requirements for creating test cases. This avoids judgments on hotspots and optimizes testing, thus, avoiding failure. As Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning make their way through the Quality Assurance arena, there has been a massive shift toward relentless improvement.

Since customer experiences are subject to consistent evolution, regular evaluation is necessary for AI and ML-based projects. It’s not a surprise that plenty of organizations are focusing on developing AI-infused business applications with sensing, thinking, and acting capabilities.

This kind of solution monitors performance and user experience testing data at a granular stage to find anomalies, patterns, and lead to more accurate identification of the root cause of an issue. By extension, the concerned teams would be able to resolve degradations earlier.

Summing It Up

Prevention is better than cure. This proverb holds more truth than anything else in the Quality Assurance sector. Just like what happens while implementing something new, enterprises face a wide array of challenges when they decide to use proactive monitoring of customer experience with AI/ML-based assurance. But once you end up overcoming the lack of awareness phase, things will start to fall in place.

With the world at a stage where we are currently testing the waters of 5G, ML and AI will play a crucial role in carrying out intelligent and pragmatic network operations besides handling customer experience. Moreover, dynamic network slicing is an emerging concept focused on proactively preventing and resolving problems to implement a higher level of test automation.

It’s a no-brainer that delay in taking corrective actions can negatively affect your subscriber count in case of network performance issues. A strong focus on ML / AI-based includes comprehensive documentation, implementation of test suite optimization, customer sentiment analytics, defect analytics, scenario traceability, rapid impact analysis, integrated requirements traceability matrix (RTM), and log analytics.

It’s high time businesses started implementing AI testing to improve their existing Quality Assurance methodologies along with test automation frameworks. It’s important to opt for an AI/ML-Based testing platform to ensure integrity, authenticity, and availability of error free data. When you leverage Machine Learning and AI capabilities, it also improves network uptime, offers network quality optimization, and provides deeper insights of real customer experiences to operators.