The introduction of the web was one of the most important landmarks in human history. Especially, the amalgamation of the web and the internet. It not only made the concept of information sharing possible but laid the foundation of a more connected world.  

At present, there are around 1.18 billion websites in the world. Though the numbers keep on fluctuating, the concept of a connected world and digital transformation has made quality an extremely crucial aspect. From business enthusiasts to random users on the web, it is only the quality of the web solutions that is most important.  

Nevertheless, the initial days of the web were different. With minimal competition ruling the business world, the present scenario demands rapid deliveries, without compromising on quality. But, sticking to manual testing has its own limitations when it comes to resource allocation, time, and efforts required. And therefore, web automation testing has emerged as the need of the hour. Also, when we take the competition and adoption of agile development into consideration, automation becomes an essential practice to follow.  

However, the only thing where testers struggle with Automation is the lack of knowledge, skills, and resources that can help yield perfection. Especially, the organizations that still rely on legacy practices like manual testing need more exposure on automation testing services.  

In this blog, we will try to highlight some significant challenges that testers encounter on their way to web test automation. Meanwhile, we will also try to underline the definition of the concept & benefits surrounding the use of web automation testing services.  

Let’s begin! 

What Does Automated Website Testing Mean? 

In simple words, website automated testing is a process that involves the use of automated tools to perform testing on a website for evaluating the efficiency of the website. The process smoothens and standardizes website testing parameters for configuration changes that occur during the development phase.  

These automation tools make sure that every element of a website is tested with fewer resources and time while delivering consistent results to site owners and administrators. Automating web testing ensures better test coverage and it even improves detection of all the underlying discrepancies. 

Benefits of Automated Web Testing 

• Improved Test Efficiency: Although it may take more time to set up the test automation framework. However, once the automated tests are initiated, testers can focus on other tasks and evaluate test results once all the test cases are executed. 
• In-depth and detailed Report: Automation Testing always provides in-depth and detailed reports that simply won’t be possibly done manually. And we also can’t overlook the fact that this would be done in a shorter period.  
• Less chance of human error: Web Automation Tests can be run at any time of the day even overnight, so it is obvious that there is no need for human intervention. More importantly, automation helps to reduce the risk of human error.   
• Code Coverage and Regression Testing: The tools used for automation ensures maximum code coverage which ensures that the website stays robust in terms of functionality. 
• Reusability of Test Cases: The repetitive feature of automation helps re-use the test scripts which is extremely useful when new patches are developed and software needs to be tested as a whole again.  
• Early Detection of Defects: Automated Website Testing is beneficial for validation in various phases of web development. In this way, the testers can uncover the bugs and errors faster and thereby save time. 
• High-end User Experience: As automation helps boost test coverage in restricted timelines, it helps the QAs test newly developed features in a shorter span. All in all, a pleasing user experience ensures that good service is disseminated to the website users. 
• Supports Load Testing: With the help of Web Automated Tests, one can run thousands of tests simultaneously while simulating millions of users.   

Challenges Faced During Web Test Automation 

Web test automation enables testers to test the functionality of web applications thoroughly and quickly. Besides, it helps to ensure there are no deviations in the result from the expected user experience and interactions. However, even this beneficial process involves certain challenges for testers, such as: 

• Proper Planning: During website automation testing a question arises of how much to automate? One cannot automate everything! So, the team needs to draft a plan thoroughly regarding which process to automate and up to what level.  
• Multiple Error handling: Error handling can be a hectic and challenging process during web test automation. This is especially the case when test teams tackle large projects with complex scenarios and large volumes. 
• Long test script execution time: As we are aware that web test automation is a time-intensive affair, so, it requires significant test script execution time, depending on the number of test cases involved. However, the fast-paced technology environment and agile development landscape limits the time testers get to maintain the quality of releases. 
• Steering/handling frequent UI changes: Due to the new integrations or the addition of new features or functionalities, many of the components of a web application’s UI are prone to frequent changes. Due to this maintenance of UI testing script becomes a challenge. 
• Web elements with undefined Ids: Web developers often skip on providing an ID to every web element. However, providing IDs to the web elements makes it easy for automation scripts to locate the web elements.  If not found on the time it can lead to all things going futile. So, ID allocations are a must for better script synchronization. 
• Team Selection: It sometimes can be challenging as one needs to have technically sound resources with a thorough understanding of the business process. This is why a deep understanding of the respective development language is vital for every resource working on automation testing. 
• False Positives and False Negatives: False positive is a scenario where the system is fundamentally working fine but the automation scripts declare the system to be not working fine this could cause a tester to a huge amount of his time and money to find out something that doesn’t even exist. On the other hand, a false negative scenario declares the system to be working fine. But in reality, it doesn’t work. All such issues happen at the initial stage. It usually involves issues like inaccurate database or abrupt test environment settings due to network issues. Such challenges mislead the testing team and increase the communication gap between QA and the development teams. 

Solutions To Overcome Challenges During Web Test Automation 

• To increase the benefits one can have it is essential to choose the right web test automation solution. It is better to choose codeless test automation solutions. It not only allows to ease the process of script maintenance but even allows the testers to save time and money.  
• Organizations should work to uncomplicate web testing. Developers can help by using common UI elements allowing the testers to understand and strategize tests efficiently.  
• For web test automation to be truly successful and deliver sustainable results, it must become a fundamental part of the testing process. The organizations should have well-established best practices and apt mechanisms for proficient results.  
• As discussed, handling flaky tests is itself a challenge for automation testers. Thus, we need to make sure that the test plans, test cases, and testing environment are managed appropriately.

Conclusion 

All in all, web test automation is an important but critical testing process. After all, it allows testers to verify and validate the functionality of a Web’s UI and other features. Successfully adopting web test automation makes the QA team capable of reducing regression testing efforts and time.  

Not to overlook the complexity of challenges with web test automation, it is sometimes difficult to mitigate certain challenges. However, effectively handling these challenges helps the team to deliver a robust & user-friendly web app that delivers superior results.