Automation testing is a method of practicing an application to implement the entire life cycle of the software in a minimum amount of time and provides effectiveness and efficiency of testing the software. It is a technique where the tester itself writes the scripts and uses a suitable software that it apt for testing.
In other words, automation testing uses automation tools to write and execute the test cases. Generally, the testers write test scripts and test cases using the automation tool and the group them into the test suites.
Mobile Application Automation Testing
Testing of mobile applications can be relatively cumbersome because of sheer extent of testing is required on a variety of devices. Besides, the mobile apps require faster changes than other type of applications like Desktop or Web. Because of this, more and more organizations have started realizing the needs of using automation testing. Mobile App Automation Testing is a massive undertaking and one can end up complicating the process by selecting a bad tool. With a major trending shift to open source mobile application tools, there have been a wide variety of tools that are now available in open-source software markets.
There is no disputing fact that Mobile Automation Testing framework is a vital part of the software development cycle. So, you need automation testing to deliver the quality applications in a timely manner and particularly for the rapidly changing mobile apps.
To reap maximum benefits from your software delivery, automated tests should be planned carefully and scheduled in such a way that they are cost-effective.
Automation Tools for Testing Android Applications
Below are some of the following automation tools for testing android applications:
- Appium
Appium is an open source test automation tool that permits you to easily write functional tests that automate Android mobile apps.
Features
Appium has the following features:
- It is a cross-platform open source mobile testing automation framework
- It is best suited for QA teams to test the functionality of the mobile app across Android.
- It can be written in any language including Python, Ruby and the most interesting JAVA and Objective – C.
- It doesn’t require access to your source code
- Its reports are limited from debugging and fast feedback loop.
- Selendroid
It is an open source automation framework that drives off the UI of Android applications. Also, it can be described as a powerful testing tool that can be used on emulators and real devices and still reuses the existing infrastructure of web, you can write tests using the Selenium 2 client APIs.
Features
The features of Selendroid are as follows:
- Can interact with various Android simulators and devices simultaneously
- It supports development tools using any Web Driver language including JAVA, Ruby, C#, etc.
- Can simulate human actions like swipe, drag, touch, etc. on devices
- Robotium
It is widely adopted open source Android test automation framework. It can only be used if you have the source code for the app or either you can run it on either emulators or real devices. For Robotium, you need apk file for the app or the source code, Android Development Tools, Java Development Kit and the Robotium.
Features
The features of Robotium are:
- Handles multiple Android routines automatically
- Easy to write powerful test scenarios
- It supports native and hybrid Android apps
- UI Automator
It is an Android UI framework for mobile testing and its key features includes cross-app functional testing, switch between installed and system apps and has the ability to test the multiple apps. It is also known as black-box testing tool and is written in JAVA, the Google’s ultimate language of choice.
Features
Following are the features of UI Automator:
- It is a framework that is developed and maintained by Google.
- It comes with a very useful GUI tool to analyze and scan the UI components that are currently displayed on the device.
Conclusion
Automation testing is the best method to fulfill most of the testing goals with effective resources. Be careful before choosing the appropriate automation tool as it can fulfill 100% requirement of the application.
Author: Claire Mackerras, is a Senior QA Engineer & Editor associated with Bugraptors. A CMMi5 certified company with extensive experience as a third party testing vendor in US. She is passionate toward writing on technological trends for manual & automation software testing. She likes to share her knowledge, for the readers who are interested in exploring testing tact’s and trends.