How to Integrate Automated Testing Solutions Into Your Product Development Cycle

An agile product development cycle enables organizations to reduce time to market and improve product quality. It is vital to set up a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline to transform the product lifecycle. Automated testing enables optimization of the CI/CD pipeline, which results in assured product quality. Due to the growing demand, the global automated testing market is expected to reach $51.26 billion in 2030 from $15.39 billion in 2023. 

Automation in testing sets up trigger points for tests to run automatically. This helps expedite the bug identification and rectification process. Further, technology integration with AI and ML enables organizations to scale up testing and expedite time-to-market.

Need For Automated Testing 

The bottlenecks you encounter with your CI/CD pipeline can be primarily attributed to manual testing. Without automated testing, the continuous delivery pipeline will slow down because manual testing cannot be continuous. It increases production costs and affects product quality.

Newer development frameworks are imperative for modernized product development. The overall quality of the product will be affected if the testing team cannot conduct extensive tests as required. Implementing testing automation will enable modernizing the testing framework to match the agility demands of quick iterations and releases.

When new bugs are introduced in the system because manual testers cannot capture them, developers are forced to roll back code. It hampers product development continuity. Integrating automated testing into each step of the pipeline will reduce the amount and cost of rollbacks.

Case Studies for Automated Testing 

Testing automation is a top priority for leading companies in their product development cycle to reduce testing time, improve product quality, and increase testing coverage. Some of the case studies where testing automation proved valuable are:

• DHL incorporated automated testing into their DHL Parcel Software and achieved 65% faster runtime with increased number of tests and improved test coverage. They leveraged Cyprus Docker containers and Jenkin’s built-in parallelization to reduce CPU idle time.

• A US government agency adopted the Subject7 test automation platform to implement codeless test automation. It accelerated test automation with continuous feedback from the automated tests.

Best Practices to Integrate Automated Testing

Organizations must move from siloed testing to automated testing integration. They can derive value from agile product development with a continuous and automated delivery pipeline. Some of the best practices for integrating testing automation into the product development cycle are:

Redefine Requirement Specification Phase 

Automated testing can be utilized effectively when test scenarios are extensive. This can be achieved by including test automation opportunities in the scope of activities during the specification requirements phase. Different testing scenarios can be included in the initial phases of the product development cycle to optimize testing automation. 

Choose the Correct Architecture Framework 

Testing automation involves writing testing scripts extensively. Choosing the proper automation framework determines the efficacy of testing. Integrating the automation testing framework with other third-party tools for CI/CD will help with proper execution. 

Use Automation Tools 

Choose automation testing tools based on the project scope. Headless testing is helpful for cross-platform testing to test the product across multiple platforms and browsers. Several organizations widely use end-to-end testing to ensure the product responds appropriately to the real user scenario. Test automation for nightly builds is helpful in quickly tracking bugs in the software code. 

Rigorous Checking 

Based on the demands of the project and user requirements, incorporate rigorous procedures to check for errors and bugs. Automated testing enables collaboration between test automation teams, software testing teams, and QA to keep defects to a minimum. 

Establish Priorities 

Even with automation, too many test cases can slow down the process. Prioritizing test cases and executing them in the right order will reduce project complexities. The test cases must be tested on multiple platforms and browsers to ensure stability and compatibility. 

Expand Usability Testing 

As user experience is the crux of all types of products, you must integrate different types of testing automation for usability testing. User Interface (UI) testing, User Experience (UX) design, database testing, regression testing, etc. are automated testing capabilities that benefit product development. 

Manage Test Reporting 

Every bug identified must be promptly rectified. The execution logs and reports must be verified using bug-tracking tools. Based on the reports and verification, the test automation frameworks may be adjusted. Also, it can result in changes in the test cases. 

Adopt Data-Driven Testing 

Data-driven testing methodology allows testers to test the same script on different sets of data. You can reduce the time spent testing multiple data sets with a data framework. Both positive and negative test cases can be incorporated into a single test, which saves time and effort for the testing team. 

Leverage Testing Automation to Improve Agility

Conducting parallel testing on a large scale will reduce the time consumed by testing processes. For example, compatibility testing can be conducted on simulators and emulators, while testing on real devices can be pushed for later in the pipeline.  

As AI and ML are integrated into automation testing, it can evolve to hyper-automation testing. The algorithms can detect and predict defects much earlier in the product development cycle, improving testing efficiency. The low-code and no-code automation testing tool interfaces allow non-technical users to successfully run test cases. Performance engineering testing optimizes system responsiveness and user experiences beyond traditional load testing.  

The product development process evolves constantly. To succeed, your organization must adapt quickly to changing technological frameworks. Integra’s automated testing solution can automate 40% of your legacy tests. Automation supports multiple testing frameworks and enables scaling up as needed. 

Conclusion

Automated testing tools harness the power of AI and ML to predict errors and detect flaws even before they appear. Such tools can create self-healing test scripts that can create new test cases based on changes in the product code. With automation, organizations can implement testing in the early phases of product development that can ensure the highest quality of delivery. As codeless testing technologies gain popularity, people with non-technical skills can also become crucial members of the testing team.