Every single individual in the field of software engineering is well aware of the rapidly changing trends and technologies in the industry. Many businesses today are increasingly relying on the use of automation tools instead of a team of professionals. Although this can be a great initiative with the shift in the market yet it may cause businesses to suffer. Either having an in-house team of testers or outsourcing professionals from different automation testing companies, businesses must not forego the power of humans at the backend. A variety of reasons can be jot down in this regard which we’ll further expose.
Automation is growing rapidly not only in quality inspection testing but also in our daily life. There are examples of some organizations which have totally laid off their staff especially testers just because they have implemented various test automation tools. While there are some organizations which have implemented modern automation tools and have trained their testers on how to use tools. Who would you think would have developed a better testing strategy? Well the organization who has trained its testers of automation tools would definitely reap success and productivity.
Haven’t got it yet? Well! The reason is that a fool with tools in hand, will always be a fool.
Before concluding the topic and coming up with a potential answer to our main question; let us have a look at some of the facts which uncover the reality of how automation testing tools have brought a revolution in the industry.
- Multiple Tasks Simultaneously – No doubt machines work more efficiently than that of humans in terms of accomplishing multiple tasks simultaneously. Unlike manual testers, computers/systems never care about wasting time on phone calls or review meetings/presentations. Of course, in some cases, this can increase productivity for organizations as compared to manual testers.
- Accuracy of heavy Calculations – In terms of comparing a human brain with that of the brain of a machine or computer, machines are way more intelligent as they can perform heavy mathematical tasks and calculations in no time and with more efficiency. Computers have highly responsive and efficient memorizing and retrieving skills. This calculation accuracy can be utilized through test automation, especially in tests involving large amounts of calculation work.
- Energetic and efficient – Machines are much more energetic and never feel tired as compared to humans. Generally, we being humans get tired, bored and distracted when it comes to repetitive tasks. But machines are never fatigued and never feel bored even they are able to work on weekends and can have night shifts without demanding any holiday until any malfunction or error is encountered.
- Cost-effectiveness – Test automation is good at making an organization cost-effective and efficient. Normally, automation tools may involve some high initial implementation costs but later on it is guaranteed for an organization to have cost effectiveness. With limited trained resources and highly advanced automation tools organizations can ensure the security of their software applications with relatively limited expenditure involved.
- Load & Performance Testing – For load testing, it’s obvious that automation is an absolute necessity. The days of Convening 100 employees into a large laboratory, asking each of them to press the Enter key at the same time, hoping that they would press it completely at the same time (millisecond level)! In the test, we need the accuracy of the movement. For these types of scenarios such as load and performance testing, test automation can ensure a high rate of accuracy.
- A good choice for regression testing – For regression testing built every night, test automation may be a good choice.
Conclusion
Now let’s move on to summarize this whole. We have discussed some key benefits of test automation but how can these machines work? Like obviously inputs are necessary for computers to respond accordingly. And now ask yourself a simple question; who provides inputs to computers or systems? Obviously we humans! Then coming up with an absolute statement that automation tools are able to replace humans is not at all logical.
A hammer is nothing if it is not being used by a carpenter. Likewise, automation tools are nothing just machines until they are used by the testers. Thus, there will always be a need for a skilled team of testers along with automation tools to have inputs in the form of test cases or scripts. Because machines itself are nothing but a piece of decoration. Both humans and tools compliment each other in this challenging field of testing.
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