Month: November 2022

Top Automation Frameworks for Web App Compatibility Testing

Posted on by KiwiQA

We are living in a mobile-first world where consumers have the flexibility to access any kind of web product via a range of devices (e.g. mobile devices, tablets, laptops, etc.). This trend can be largely attributed to the rapid proliferation of mobile devices and mobile internet.

As per reports, close to 91 percent of the world’s population has mobile phones. There is a probability that customers might lose interest in the product in case it (i.e. app or website) is not rendering appropriately on mobile screens. At the time of writing this blog, 54 percent of global web traffic comes through mobile phones.

web traffic

Source

Apart from mobile apps, consumers can access the website on mobile browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Brave, amongst others. Since consumers have the flexibility of accessing any business’s website on the mobile browser, it is important to ensure that the end-user experience is the same across different browsers and platform combinations.

Though many businesses opt for PWA (Progressive Web Apps) that can load even without internet connectivity, web application is still an important avenue for customers to experience your product (or service). Along with development it is essential to focus on web app compatibility testing so that users can access the product seamlessly on their preferred browser or viewport size.

A compatibility testing company can be a great partner in this journey since it will help in accelerating the testing process. Since automation testing is scalable and reliable, we limit the discussion on this blog to automated frameworks for realizing compatibility testing.

Table Of Contents

What is Compatibility Testing

Cross browser testing (or compatibility testing) is the process of testing your website (or web application) on different browser, platform, and device combinations. Since every browser uses different rendering engines (e.g Chrome – Blink, Firefox – Gecko, and Safari – Webkit), there is a possibility of encountering rendering issues on a select set of browser versions.

Web apps can be opened in a mobile browser, users have the flexibility to open the same in the browser and device of their choice. What if the page does not render properly for the end user? It is definitely not the kind of experience that you would want the end-users of your product to witness 🙁

Here are some of the major reasons why you should perform web app compatibility testing:

Identify Navigation Issues

Website navigation on mobile devices (or mobile browsers) can be complicated in comparison to a desktop (or tablet). Navigation issues can be a dampener to the end user experience.

Web app compatibility testing helps in zeroing-in on navigation issues before the end-users encounter the same.

Identify Layout Issues

Apart from mobile phones with different screen sizes, web developers also need to cater to the needs of foldable devices. Websites designed for desktops might need to be tailor-made for mobile screens.

Layout issues like content overflow, rendering of tables, etc. can result in usability issues. Web app compatibility testing is useful in minimizing the number of layout related problems since web apps can be tested on a wide range of browser, OS, and device combinations.

Identify Functionality Related Issues

It is likely that the functionalities (or features) of your web app might falter if they are not tested for compatibility. Different device hardware, software, and browser combinations make things pretty complicated.

Compatibility testing of the web app on target browser and mobile device sizes goes a long way in providing top-notch functional experience to the target audience.

Frameworks for Web App Compatibility Testing

Manual testing of web apps can help in locating issues in the app but it is not a scalable approach. This is where it is important to choose an appropriate automated test framework to perform testing at a large scale.

There are a number of open-source test automation frameworks that let you create scalable test cases, achieve higher test coverage, and generate test reports. Here are some of the top open-source frameworks used to perform web app compatibility testing:

Selenium WebDriver

Selenium WebDriver (part of Selenium automation suite) is one of the most popular test automation frameworks for testing websites and web applications. At the time of writing this blog, the latest version of Selenium was 4.5.0

The framework which was introduced way back in 2007, supports six major programming languages (i.e. Python, C#, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, and PHP). Using Selenium, you can run cross browser tests on a range of browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge, and more.

Cypress

Cypress is a relatively newer test automation framework when compared to Selenium WebDriver. Cypress is a JavaScript-based framework that is best suited for testing modern web applications.

At the time of writing this blog, the latest version of Cypress is v10.10.0. Unlike Selenium that runs tests outside the browser, Cypress tests run inside the browser. Due to this, Cypress tests are considered to be less flaky in comparison to Selenium automation tests. However, the flakiness factor does depend on the test design and infrastructure on which the tests are conducted.

Cypress

Source

Cypress framework is used extensively for writing component tests as well as E2E (End to End) tests. Intuitive and informative dashboard is one of the other advantages of Cypress. Both Selenium and Cypress have a strong community. Enterprises can opt for Cypress cloud grid in case they want to run Cypress tests at scale, that too on a wide range of browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Electron, and more.

Playwright

Like Selenium, Playwright also lets you implement tests using popular languages like C#, Java, Python, and JavaScript. It is ideal for web app compatibility testing as well as E2E testing. This open-source framework is owned and maintained by Microsoft.

Using Playwright, you can test the web app across Chrome, Firefox, as well as WebKit based browsers.

Playwright

Source

The Selenium vs Cypress vs Playwright comparison clearly indicates that the Playwright framework is slowly picking up pace. At the time of writing this blog, the latest version of Playwright was v1.2.0. The Playwright project is hosted on GitHub.

Like Selenium and Cypress, the Playwright framework can also be used on a cloud-based test execution platform – an approach that goes a long way in reducing infrastructure costs, improving test coverage, and improving product quality.

Partnering with an experienced compatibility testing services company can be beneficial if you intend to make the most of the benefits offered by web application compatibility testing.

Robot and Puppeteer are the other popular frameworks, however covering them is beyond the scope of this blog.

Conclusion

In today’s times, consumers have the option of accessing the website on a range of devices, including mobile phones. Though mobile applications are the preferred option, many consumers also prefer web applications over apps.

Cross browser and cross platform web application compatibility testing is necessary if you aspire to provide a flawless and seamless experience to the target audience. It is recommended to onboard an experienced compatibility testing services company in scenarios where your team does not have inhouse capability of automation testing.

Manual Accessibility Testing: A Comprehensive Guide

Posted on by KiwiQA

If you have ever spoken to a person who has conducted an accessibility audit, you have probably heard us rave about the importance of manual testing. We all appreciate the automated technologies that are available to make the web more user-friendly, but these tools have limitations: automated testing can only consistently find 20–30% of problems. They could also produce false results. You must take into account the human factor while doing accessibility testing.

Okay, now we have your attention; awesome! You’ve gotten on board. What now? In this blog, we will discuss all the insights that you MUST know about manual accessibility testing!

What Is Manual Accessibility Testing?

The practice of manually reviewing your website or application to look for accessibility problems that can be problematic for persons with impairments is known as manual accessibility testing. This kind of testing is essential for finding problems that an automated test could miss. Manual testing instances include:

  • Making sure that the website experience is the same with and without sound by turning off the speakers and microphones.
  • Using just the keyboard to navigate a website or app to make that all information is accessible and that a skip navigation link is there.
  • Ensuring the material is comprehensible when read aloud requires testing your app or website with a screen reader.

Why Manual Accessibility Testing Is Important?

Read below to know why manual accessibility testing is of great significance.

1. Manual Testing Provides The Necessary Feedback

People of all abilities should be able to use your website. Despite how sophisticated software gets, there are still many instances in which an algorithm fails to grasp the subtleties of website usability or accessibility. Because manual testing will provide you with the most in-depth information about how accessible your website is, it is essential.

The WCAG 2.1 Level, AA accessibility standards, provide quantifiable criteria to assess the accessibility of your site, but manual testing guarantees that every visitor to your site has an equally good experience.

Start your accessibility efforts with the website pages and user journeys that your customers and site visitors utilize the most, as advised by the WCAG. The assessment results will correctly represent the site’s overall accessibility if this sample of pages is tested. Review your most frequently used templates and most popular pages to start, and then grow your efforts. The purpose of accessibility testing is to find obstacles that need to be addressed so that everyone—regardless of ability—can use the web to complete the same duties.

2. Compatibility With The Screen Reader:

It is crucial to comprehend how screen readers operate before you start testing. They are frequently used assistive devices created for those with limited eyesight. In order to acquire information, screen readers essentially access or enter the DOM (Document Object Model) and employ browser Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Usually, the screen reader will anticipate the user’s demands and know exactly what to say and when to say it. You’re likely to overlook a lot of problems if you depend only on automated accessibility testing to determine if your website is suitable with a screen reader.

Start your testing using a screen reader by having it read the page consecutively while checking for the following:• Smooth and intelligible reading: The screen reader shouldn’t have any difficulties or get stuck when reading the information.

  • Smooth and intelligible reading: The screen reader shouldn’t have any difficulties or get stuck when reading the information.
  • The user is not read any hidden content: Make sure the screen reader doesn’t read the user any off-canvas navigation or a hidden search form if you have either.
  • Content is coherent and well-organized: Be careful not to include dates, phone numbers, or abbreviations where they might cause confusion.

Do not forget to test with various screen readers. For instance, Macs come pre-installed with Voiceover. On the other hand, Windows users may get NVDA for free. The two most used screen readers on the market are these two. Another popular commercial screen reader is JAWS. The title of the webpage and each text element in the order they appear in the source code are often used by screen readers. They hear all written material included in the page HTML, not just the source code.

3. Navigation With The Help Of A Keyboard:

Instead of using the mouse, many users browse web pages using their keyboards. Expert users sometimes prefer the keyboard because the commands enable better efficiency. Users with impairments may sometimes need to utilize the keyboard because they lack the fine motor skills required to operate a mouse. Your website must be functional with keyboard-only navigation, regardless of the motivation. A user should thus be able to do the following tasks using a keyboard:

  • Use the site’s numerous menus to navigate.
  • To go to crucial material, use the links at the top of the page.
  • On a certain page, go from section to section.
  • When required, highlight form fields and links.

Make sure you are confirming the following when checking if navigation is feasible with a keyboard or without a mouse:

  • Every interactive component is available: All interactive components, such as drop-down menus, buttons, dialogue boxes, forms, and other widgets, should be accessible to the user.

There is a link that says “skip navigation”: Many websites have a tab order that is programmed to mimic the layout of the page, allowing sighted keyboard users to browse the page. This becomes difficult if there are several tabs. Mouse users may interact with additional links without using the primary navigation. Keyboard-only users may do the same by clicking the skip navigation option.

You must ensure that all visitors who use the keyboard rather than a mouse to access your website have their requirements met.

4. Double Check The Colors:

When evaluating colour contrast, automated testing may go nonfunctional. Don’t get us wrong, however; using automated testing is a huge assistance in this situation. On the downside, some of these people won’t be able to view pictures over the backdrop.

Let’s use an imaginary component as an example. For the sake of this discussion, let’s say that the automated test in question found that the backdrop of your component is white and the text is dark grey. This combination would have a sufficient colour contrast under typical conditions to be acceptable. The medium blue picture that is above the white backdrop but below the grey text can be unnoticed by the automated test. The final image would then have a medium blue backdrop with dark grey text on top of it. The final product, in this case, would not have a sufficient colour contrast ratio.

How to manually test this:

  • Look for regions with a low colour contrast ratio; it’s better to try ten items and find out they work than to overlook one.
  • Grab the foreground and background colours by either utilizing the tools provided by your browser or by testing screen images in software like Photoshop.
  • These should be entered into the appropriate areas on the Color Contrast Checker website. Consider the font size and decide if it is a pass or a fail.

How To Be A Good Accessibility Tester?

The upside of any kind of modification, having a fresh perspective on the content, is one of the main advantages of manual accessibility testing. In this instance, it pertains to the distinction between automated scanning and human observation. Despite how far software technology has come, there are still many instances in which an algorithm cannot grasp the subtleties required to create a website usable by users of various abilities.

Qualified experts in the field should carry out manual accessibility testing. You can also outsource an expert from a renowned company that offers website testing services. Users with knowledge of browser plugins, assistive technology, and keyboard-only navigation will be able to spot problems with your website and suggest fixes.

The most recent guidelines for online accessibility should also be known to a manual accessibility tester. Employing a tester that comprehends both the manual requirements of impaired users and the widely acknowledged WCAG standards is crucial if you want to maintain your website’s WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance.

The mix of automatic and human testing is, in the end, the most reliable route to accessibility for the majority of websites. Simply said, there are certain tasks that people can do more quickly than robots can and vice versa. While manual testing is required when difficulties call for human evaluation, automated accessibility checking is great for providing a thorough picture of accessibility concerns throughout your complete digital presence.

Always keep in mind that maintaining an accessible website is a never-ending task. Manual accessibility testing should be a regular element of your website maintenance, just as automatic scans should be conducted at regular intervals.

Conclusion:

After using automatic accessibility testing software, you should always do manual testing as a follow-up. Because no technology can fully replace or duplicate human understanding and judgment, manual accessibility testing is a crucial component of making sure your website is accessible to everyone (yet).

You must keep in mind that even while automated tools are efficient and helpful, they cannot ensure a compliant website, which means they are insufficient. We advise using an impartial business and undertaking its accessibility testing services for your website and/or application if you want to be sure it complies with regulations and provides access to all prospective visitors.

How Can A Tester Coordinate Manual And Automated Testing?

Posted on by KiwiQA

Most of the software testing companies provide sophisticated functionalities across several platforms and gadgets. Therefore, it becomes almost difficult to manually evaluate every feature of the product in the allotted time.

The frameworks and tools for test automation provide testers with the ability to repeat the necessary tests in a predetermined amount of time while also performing a range of tests. However, no company can completely automate its testing processes. In addition to this, there are a lot of drawbacks to both manual and automated testing. Certain circumstances call for manual testing over automated testing. Because of this, effective coordination of human and automated software testing activities by the test manager is crucial.

What Are The Key Differences Between Manual And Automation Testing?

Have a look at the following pointers in order to identify the differences between the two types of testing:

  • A QA analyst does manual testing by hand (human), while a tester performs automated testing using script, code, and automation tools (computer).
  • While automation testing is quick, manual testing takes a lot of time.
  • Because there is a chance for human mistake, the manual testing procedure is not accurate, but the automated testing process is trustworthy because it is script- and code-based.
  • Remember, while automation testing cannot be done without programming skills, manual testing may be done without it.
  • Random testing is permitted during manual testing but not during automation testing.

So, Why Should You Use Both Manual And Automation Testing?

These days, it is very rare to come across an IT organization that does not offer a combination of automated and manual testing services. When the two work well together, manual testing and automated testing don’t take away from one another; rather, they build upon one another and provide stronger synergetic testing.

Automated testing often improves testing consistency and speed, but it can only be as effective as the scripts you built. In order to find problems from the viewpoint of the user or unanticipated defects from unplanned situations, etc., manual testing is complementary to automation testing. Along with effective automation, manual testing heuristics are greatly needed.

When you use a combination of these tests to cover various aspects of the same feature, when manual tests pick up where automation left off, or when there are tests that are only “semi-automatic” and require manual intervention between testing in order to move on to the next automation set of tests are some examples of how automated and manual testing can be successfully combined.

Tips On Coordination

As a tester, you can consider the following best practices in order to incorporate both manual and automated testing in your testing process.

1. Automated and manual testing complement each other

A lot of QA testing experts think that automated testing can replace manual testing. However, in practice, automated testing both supports and improves manual testing. Both methods of testing have the same end goal. Additionally, the effectiveness of test cases affects how quickly and consistently software testing tools and frameworks can run tests.

Furthermore, it is impossible to evaluate the programme from the standpoint of end-users using the tools. Therefore, you must convince the testing specialists that manual testing and automated testing are complementary.

2. Plan and coordinate your testing activities

The team’s testing activities should be managed and coordinated by one person or a small group. Coordination won’t happen if no one is given the task. In parallel to this, you must establish test management coordination as a common objective and develop it in the same way you would feature any of your products, including setting success metrics to track your progress.

Finally, make sure that the duties involved in testing and test coordination are legitimate and visible to the whole team. Several test management technologies may help with this, but make sure they include cutting-edge shared dashboards and reporting that provide this visibility across tests.

3. Try To Seamlessly Integrate Manual And Automated Testing

The management might encourage testing specialists to undertake manual testing using tools in addition to automating manual tests. He could even think about correctly integrating manual and automated testing to evaluate multiple elements of a single feature or capability.

When the automation is finished with some of these tests, the manual testers will need to begin their job. The manual testers may also be required to step in between two different sets of semi-automated testing in some cases. The combination will encourage communication and continuous coordination between the members of the manual and automated testing teams. The best practices for test automation should always be followed by specialists in automated testing.

4. Clearly specify the test cases for the automation

By precisely describing the test cases for automation, the manager may quickly coordinate the manual and automated testing activities. No manager can completely automate software testing. The selection of test cases for automation must take into account crucial factors such as repetitiveness, application complexity, variety in test data, and investment in test automation technologies. While creating the test strategy, the administrators may distinguish clearly between manual and automated testing. The test plan may be referred to by the experts doing the software QA testing to prevent future misunderstandings and confusion.

5. Striking a balance between centralization and dispersal

To meet your testing goals, it is acceptable to employ a variety of tools and platforms. Numerous systems, including bug trackers, automation frameworks, development management, etc., link with one another. The ideal tool to manage the testing process is often not the one you use to run a test (of course, there are exceptions.) Try to centralize management wherever feasible, at the very least the test findings.

6. Efficient and constant communication

Between the manual testing team and the automated testing team, the manager must ensure good communication. Members of these teams will cooperate and work together to achieve the shared goal as a result of the communication. The manager can even think about scheduling daily sharing or update meetings and encouraging both manual and automated testers to collaborate on scheduling and planning the testing operations. The proper coordination of the manual and automated testing operations depends on ongoing communication.

7. Formulate a test management environment that is integrated

The test manager must ensure that the manual and automated testing teams collaborate and operate in the same environment. The integrated and unified test management platform will improve professional collaboration and coordination.

However, in order to increase test coverage and effectively execute the testing activities, the manager must still choose the appropriate tools. He also has to choose the test management system while taking the test automation technologies that the automated testing team uses into consideration.

Managers must create thorough test strategies that specify which tests should be automated and which should be conducted manually. Determining the kind of manual and automated testing based on test coverage is also crucial. In order to effectively coordinate the human and automated software testing efforts, the manager must plan the complete software testing process in advance.

8. Deciding whether testing should be done automatically rather than manually

The management will not be able to determine the value achieved from the automation testing until this most important choice has been made – what type of test must be done, ma Three fundamental elements must be connected to this:

  • ROI: The benefit you will get from automating this particular script, or the return on investment for automating your test. Typically, the question is asked about how long it will take to automate your script, how frequently you will execute it automatically, and how much time you will be able to save as a result.
  • The test’s complexity: It refers to both how difficult it is to write an automated script and how simple it is to run a test by hand. Some tests are almost impossible to automate, while others are too challenging to be completed manually. The tester should be able to decide whether tests are better suited for automated or manual execution.
  • The constancy of your AUT: Dealing with changes in your application under test is the largest problem for automated test frameworks.

9. Maintain consistency with names and conventions

To facilitate better team communication, use consistent names and conventions across your tests. Place “legends” or “explanations” if necessary in key locations, but make sure everyone is “speaking the same language.”

10. Not every team member will be interested in every result

Consider your audience when developing metrics, dashboards, and reports before sharing the data you have worked so hard to gather. Based on their requirements and what they need to know, provide it.

It is completely acceptable to utilise the same results in several metrics or dashboards; doing so might emphasize various aspects of your findings, and certain individuals could connect to particular result representations more easily than others. Always provide a brief, precise explanation or caption of what is being presented in metrics and dashboards since it is almost difficult to make them self-explanatory. When focusing on many dashboards, be particularly cohesive.

Effective management of manual and automated testing is comparable to leading an orchestra, using various instruments, playing various melodies, sometimes at various tempos, and working toward a common objective that is larger than the sum of its parts. Although careful preparation and execution are necessary, the outcomes are often remarkable!

Getting Started Guide to DevSecOps

Posted on by KiwiQA

Faster developer feedback, accelerated release velocity, and faster TTM (Time to Market) are some of the buzzwords that are applicable to all types of software products. Irrespective of the application being built, there must be an immense attention to detail to usability, functionality, reliability, and security of the app.

Agile approach to software development has been a complete game-changer since it helps improve collaboration between teams and brings testing at part with the development. Modern software teams cannot do away with Agile methodology owing to the n numerous benefits offered by the methodology.

One more methodology that is quickly picking up pace is DevSecOps, the methodology that is built for security-focussed teams. For starters DevSecOps is the amalgamation of (Development + Security + Operations). DevSecOps lays emphasis on security aspects of the product during the entire cycle of product development.

Though Agile focuses on adaptability and collaboration in the complete product lifecycle, DevSecOps focuses on embedding security into the various aspects of the software development process. As per our experience providing penetration testing services as a part of DevSecOps offerings to our clients, we have realized that there is no either/or in Agile & DevSecOps.

Agile and DevSecOps have to go hand-in-hand for ensuring the faster and quality release of any software product. Since product security is such an integral part of product development, it’s about time companies (irrespective of size or scale) focus on DevSecOps to improve the security aspects of their product.

In our initial blog on DevSecOps, we would look into the various aspects of DevSecOps including differences between DevSecOps and Agile. The learnings of this blog would be helpful to build a good DevSecOps strategy.

What is DevSecOps?

DevSecOps is the combination of Development, Security, and Operations. The intent of bringing in DevSecOps in the product life cycle is to emphasize the importance of security in every aspect of web product development.

DevSecOps is an integral part of the “Shift Left” approach, as it enables the integration of security testing at early stages of the development life cycle.

Since security tests are part of every feature release, the team would be able to detect security vulnerabilities early on. This means that the overall cost to fix security issues would be much less when compared to cost incurred when the issues at later stages.

As shown below, the DevSecOps lifecycle is almost similar to the DevOps lifecycle:

Source

Though DevSecOps is an extension of DevOps, there is still a difference between DevOps and DevSecOps. We will be covering the differences later in this blog.

Benefits Of DevSecOps

Now that we touched upon the basics of DevSecOps, let’s look at the benefits offered by automation with DevSecOps:

Early detection of security issues

Before DevSecOps, security testing was not considered a part of the overall CI/CD process. Though UI testing, performance testing, and other forms of testing were a part of the CI pipeline; security testing was still considered a separate activity.

Like other forms of testing, security testing too has now become a part of CI pipeline with DevSecOps. The integration of security processes & tests into the DevOps pipeline boils down to early detection of bugs in the development and testing phases.

Hence, teams would be able to ship high-quality secure software at a much faster pace.

Faster speed of recovery

It could be a disastrous situation if the vulnerabilities are unearthed by the end-users of the product. Before DevSecOps, security vulnerabilities were exposed at a much later point in the development lifecycle.

With DevSecOps in place, security tests are run at regular intervals (and frequencies); thereby minimizing the costs involved in locating & resolving security-related bugs.

Automated Scans for earlier detection of bugs

There are automated security testing tools that can help you make the most of automation from a security perspective. With DevSecOps, automated code scans will be a regular feature of the code check-ins, builds, tests, releases, and other aspects of the CI/CD pipeline.

Burp Suite Enterprise Edition, Veracode Platform, ElastAlert, etc. are some of the DevSecOps tools that have the capabilities to perform automated code scans, send out real-time alerts (in case of security lapses), and more.

With the integration of DevSecOps tools in the CI pipeline, security vulnerabilities can be identified and fixed at a significantly faster speed.

In case your team does not have hands-on expertise with the DevSecOps lifecycle, it is recommended to partner with a penetration testing company so that a more secure product can be shipped to the market.

Difference between DevOps and DevSecOps

Since DevSecOps is an extension of DevOps, the core fundamentals of the methodology still remains the same. Having said that, there are a good number of differences between DevOps and DevSecOps, let’s look into them.

  • In DevOps, security was not a shared responsibility. Though DevOps and DevSecOps rely heavily on automation, security became the point of focus (in every release) only after the advent of DevSecOps. Security is now a collective responsibility with DevSecOps
  • In DevOps, the entire emphasis is on software development. On the other hand, security (in software) is the main focus in DevSecOps. This results in minimization of downtime and data loss.
  • In DevOps, security is given preference after the development pipeline. On the other hand, security starts in the build process itself in DevSecOps.

Shown below is the pictorial representation of the differences between DevOps and DevSecOps:

Image Source

Key Components Of DevSecOps

Before we deep dive into the major components, it is important to reiterate that automation is one of the important pillars of DevOps as well as DevSecOps. Having said that, here are some of the major components that should be a part of your DevSecOps strategy:

Collaboration

With DevSecOps in place, security is not confined to a single team or couple of members in the security team. It is a shared responsibility. Building a security-first mindset is a must-needed change to build a DevSecOps-first culture.

Security teams must leverage the best DevSecOps practices for automating the security tasks across wherever possible. Developers in the team must also make a conscious effort (by seeking support from the security teams) to learn the nuances of security testing so that they can also help the security team.

Communication

Developers and members of the security team must work very closely to bridge any type of communication gaps. Folks in the security testing team must emphasize the importance of security and compliance as understood by the developers.

On the other hand, developers must also make use of security best practices when writing source code. Security must be inculcated in every aspect of the software development cycle. With a tight collaboration and communication between developers and security team members, you would be able to gain faster feedback as far as security vulnerabilities are concerned.

Automation

Since DevSecOps is an extension of DevOps, it is important to focus on automation throughout the security testing lifecycle. Automated analysis and testing of the security aspects of the product features must be a part of the CI/CD pipeline.

With DevSecOps in place, you can realize faster developer feedback from a security perspective. Security controls must be set in place so that relevant alerts are raised whenever security risks rise over a predefined threshold.

We have already covered some of the automated tools that can help in automated security testing of the various features of the product.

Security Tools

Access management andRBAC (Role Based Access Control) must be considered an integral part of the tools that are chosen for the job. Just imagine, some piece of code gaining access to a protected area and doing some modifications in the overall control flow?

Hence, various security mechanisms must be set in place to ensure that access is only allowed to parties that have been granted access. Some of the best practices that must be put in place to reap the benefits of DevSecOps:

  • Multi factor authentication
  • Usage of latest and stable versions of compilers
  • Creating policies when managing third-party risks
  • Usage of dynamic & static analysis and reporting
  • Using penetration testing to unearth security vulnerabilities, and more.

Automated tools must be able to identify and alert if any private (or confidential) information is being pushed to the repository. For example, most cloud providers provide user name & access key to use their products. The automated security tool must scan all the code being pushed in the repository and alert if any such confidential information is left openly in the code.

Encryption and MFA (Multi Factor Authentication) must be a regular feature for any kind of data that will be available to the end-users of the product.

Testing

The major plus point of DevSecOps over DevOps is that security testing is measured against the same yardstick as other forms of testing. In DevSecOps, security goes hand-in-hand with development. This is only possible by leveraging tools that can accelerate security testing.

Automation can be instrumental in scanning the source code and identifying any sorts of vulnerabilities in the code. For example, storage of private information in a textual format can be a potential security issue. On similar lines, storage of passwords in the console (or execution) logs can be detrimental to the overall product security.

Security testing mechanisms like static application security testing (SAST), dynamic application security testing (DAST), pen testing, and threat modeling are some of the testing mechanisms that must be a part of the DevSecOps pipeline.

Needless to mention that all the discovered vulnerabilities and the corresponding steps must be documented in the form of test reports. The reports would be helpful in the later stages of the current project and also act as learnings for the future projects.

Penetration Testing in DevSecOps

Since security is the main point of discussion in DevSecOps, penetration testing must be considered on priority. You need to have a detailed understanding about the various stages of penetration testing to build a fool-proof pen testing plan.

However, exposing potential vulnerabilities through penetration testing can be a tedious and pain-staking process. Automated penetration tests that are a part of the CI/CD pipeline help in advanced identification of the security vulnerabilities. This can be followed up with manual testing so that no stone is left unturned during the process of security testing.

Manual and automated penetration testing will help in making the most of DevSecOps.

Conclusion

In today’s fast-paced software world, it is imperative to give software security equal priority as a compromised piece of software can result in loss of sales (and reputation). This is where DevSecOps comes into the picture, as it integrates security tests into the CI pipeline.

Faster developer feedback and shift ‘security’ left are some of the advantages of incorporating DevSecOps practices into the project. Since security checks and tests are a part of the CI/CD pipeline, you can release a functional and super-secure product at a much faster pace.

E-Commerce And Usability Testing: What’s The Link?

Posted on by KiwiQA

Usability maintains its position as the factor that unlocks the doors to the digital world. It is significant to note that even if content reigns, Functionality is still the supreme commander of any website. E-commerce websites are nonetheless subject to regulation. A website is obviously condemned to isolation without an easy-to-use layout and clear navigation since client satisfaction is just not possible. Off-course, no one likes to use a poorly designed website!

Regarding usability, it would be foolish to depend exclusively on the developer and UX designer team’s vision since their interpretation of simplicity differs significantly from the users. Therefore, the right testing is necessary. In this blog-post, we will discuss the fundamental usability concepts that apply to online shops and describe the usability testing procedure for e-commerce websites.

Usability Testing: The Foundation

According to UI guides, usability is the degree to which a product can be used by certain users in a given setting to effectively and satisfactorily accomplish specific objectives. To avoid frightening you off with a complex idea, QA professionals have boiled it down to the quality of site design that does not force the user to think about things they don’t need to. When seen in this light, a website that adheres to all usability criteria is self-evident, self-explanatory, and most importantly, apparent.

Let’s not forget that everyone, including ourselves, likes to perceive our conduct to be much more logical than it really is when imagining a super-rational and attentive user who would traverse the website the way we do.

Why A Website’s Usability Is Crucial For E-Commerce?

Consumers often evaluate websites based on their online experiences since most firms utilise websites as touchpoints to reach out to customers. The majority of purchases made on e-commerce websites are made using the web interface. Currently, we have high standards for the online purchasing experience. In fact, if a website’s checkout procedure is unnecessarily complicated, customers are more likely to leave their shopping basket. Therefore, these companies may encounter a number of issues without usability testing. The website’s ability to convert leads is impacted by usability issues. As a consequence, it turns potential customers away from your items and toward your rivals.

On the other hand, successfully integrating usability testing may raise customer satisfaction, client retention, churn rates, and revenues. As a result, the usability of a website greatly influences its capacity to be successful online.

In light of this, it is crucial that e-commerce sites enhance their functions in accordance with customer demands. Your shop should always be updating its usability and fixing bugs. Here are some of the main advantages it may offer:

1. An enhanced consumer experience across all channels:

Users now anticipate more integration between their online and offline buying experiences as consumer requirements shift. Your company may be able to better satisfy customers’ omnichannel expectations by enhancing platform usability. It is more convenient for your consumers if you are accessible when they need you. A user-friendly website makes the procedure even simpler.

2. Shortens browsing sessions:

Your site visitor should have the easiest and most fun time surfing. E-commerce user experiences that are optimized have shorter loading times and make it easier for customers to discover the goods they want most quickly.

A recent study found that customers are most likely to make a purchase three to four minutes after seeing your website. The chance of finishing the checkout procedure substantially declines once this time reaches seven minutes. Therefore, longer visitor sessions caused by usability concerns have a big impact on prospective earnings.

3. Increased interest in a brand:

Once customers have a positive shopping experience, they are more inclined to come back and make more purchases. Here, a simple and memorable site design can ensure that your brand is recognized and set it out from the competition in addition to providing easy navigation.

Your brand will become more well-known if you are consistent with the visitor experience you provide. Additionally, engaging language and graphic components will encourage visitors to browse your website and interact with your material.

4. Creates trustworthiness:

Every visit and purchase made at an online business should be the same since this fosters customer confidence and builds brand reputation. On the other hand, if your website is sluggish or challenging to use and has a disorganised user interface (UI), this may harm its reputation with customers. As a result, there will be fewer repeat purchases and more cart abandonment.

A usability test conducted by a website testing company can enable you to find website issues and ensure that you are giving your customers the most beneficial e-commerce experience possible. You may improve your customers’ purchasing experiences by making the appropriate usability modifications after doing automated testing in addition to manual ones.

Benefits Of Usability Testing In The E-Commerce Industry!

Have a look below in order to magnify the benefits of usability testing in the e-commerce industry.

1. A higher rate of retention

After arriving on a website’s homepage, the majority of visitors exit. You may identify the problems with your website that are preventing people from staying on it by doing usability testing. Here are a few main explanations for why visitors leave a landing page after clicking.

The user waits nervously as the homepage loads slowly. On the website, the user cannot locate the necessary information. The site requires Flash plug-ins, which sometimes upsets the user. The site retention rate may be raised using a few different tactics. Among the simple strategies you may use to keep people on your site include removing pop-up advertising, changing the homepage often, and having a decent design.

2. Lower redesigning expenses

You may avoid incurring astronomical redesign expenditures by doing e-commerce usability testing upfront and figuring out the prices. It is usually preferable to make a few little adjustments after doing usability testing than to completely revamp the website. When your website is being redesigned, users will be less engaged, thus improving usability can ultimately lower support expenses.

3. Improved brand perception

Websites are an essential component of marketing strategies. It is the lone example for effectively expressing your brand image. When you design a welcoming website, people will form an opinion of your company. They will ultimately click away to your competitor’s website if this is not managed appropriately. Usability testing allows you to identify both significant and little issues in online content, such as typos and grammatical mistakes.

4. Increased revenue and sales figures

Your revenues will directly increase as your band’s reputation advances, shopping cart abandonment rates decline, and visitor retention increases. When trying to enhance your sales rates, it is crucial to consider the user’s point of view. Some of the important factors that contribute to higher sales include choosing the correct audience to target, offering the right details about the items that are shown on the website, and giving the user all the information they want on a single page.

5. A decline in shopping cart abandonment

It’s critical to lower the rate of shopping page abandonment. You may increase the purchase rates by comprehending the causes of these dropouts through e-commerce usability testing. Therefore, e-commerce usability testing is crucial if one wants to make the website user-friendly and provide the consumer with exceptional experiences.

It would be beneficial to remember that hiring services from an e-commerce testing company will help you get maximum benefits.

Steps for E-Commerce Website Usability Testing

You may easily reach your target audience successfully as long as your strategy is sound and is backed up with test assignments that are concisely defined. The processes listed below may be used to carry out usability testing for your e-commerce website:

1. Decide what measurements to take

Testers must first identify their objectives before doing any testing. The activities you are analysing and the area of the website you need to focus on are both included in this. For instance, you could wish to test how consumers would add several things to their carts on an e-commerce website. Is it simple for them to establish the pricing in the currency of their choice? Do they have hassle-free access to pick their chosen payment method? Or are you interested in evaluating how a fresh website design influences user experience?

Whatever the purpose of your test, you should assess each of them independently. To accurately measure the test and evaluate the findings, you should specify each aim properly at the same time.

2. Choose the best approach

Select the approach that best satisfies your needs. Moderated remote testing could be the ideal strategy for e-commerce websites. Visitors to e-commerce websites come from a variety of demographic groups since the sites provide you access to high-quality events with participants from across the globe.

3. Establish your success rate and create a task scenario

The testing situations we have specified in the first phase are often similar. You must establish boundaries to gauge your success rate after setting the scene. For instance, you may assess if the website displays payment options that are legal in the user’s country to check whether consumers can choose the payment methods they like.

4. Find the Participants

Your company must choose the appropriate people for website usability testing. Five volunteers are often the appropriate number for each testing session. However, this sum may change based on the testing strategy you choose and the e-commerce website’s stage of development.

The Hallway Method, in which you choose random individuals to evaluate the website, may be used in the early phases. Having said that, as development moves forward, you must choose participants that match the user persona well and can provide you with reliable data. A user persona describes the traits, requirements, and objectives of actual users as well as their behaviour on your website.

5. Carry out the test

It’s critical to follow the same task and sequence throughout the exam. Giving them clear and precise directions is crucial, even when testing unmoderated remote users.

6. Analyze and present your results

You may compile reports and summarise your findings based on the kind of testing you conducted. A customer journey map that outlines how users connect with and use your website may be made. These user stories help your team develop more usable websites by providing deeper insights into the behaviour of the client.

Summing-Up!

Websites and applications for e-commerce and retail are often overrun with visitors who want to know why this specific item is the one they need. Websites and applications need to invest in the experience they are giving their consumers before and after the purchase since this will be the determining factor in turning visitors into customers.

Simply put, a positive user experience must be offered by your e-commerce website. However, to create a successful e-commerce user experience, particular data must be obtained to guide decision-making.

Complete Guide to User Acceptance Testing

Posted on by KiwiQA

How many times have you come across an application (or website) where bugs, failures, or issues have acted as a complete turn off of the experience? Well, such an experience can be dampening to your business, as customers tend to shy away from such products.

End to end testing of the product features becomes absolutely essential in such scenarios. Along with unit testing, integration testing, E2E testing, load testing, performance testing, etc.; it is important to regularly conduct user acceptance testing for ensuring that the implemented features are meeting the needs of the end users.

When tested, features of your product might work in the ideal test conditions but they need to function as expected when used in real-world scenarios. This is where UAT (User Acceptance Testing) comes into the perspective. The million $ question is “Should UAT be performed for every type of software project”? From a tester’s point of view, you need to have a clear visibility on where user acceptance testing fits in the big scheme of things.

How much effort must the QA team spend on user acceptance testing? Can a software product be shipped without performing user acceptance tests? Who performs UAT, how frequently should you run those tests ? Well, we have you covered in case you need answers to these critical questions.

In this blog, we deep dive into the most essential aspects of user acceptance testing. The learnings of this blog will be useful in devising a UAT strategy that works for all types (e.g. e-commerce, SaaS, communication, etc.) of software products.

Let’s start with the basics of user acceptance testing, post which we would unravel the what, why, and how of UAT.

What is User Acceptance Testing?

User Acceptance Testing (or UAT) is a form of software testing where the features of the AUT (Application Under Test) are tested against real-world conditions. This software testing approach helps in improving the product quality and filling up the quality gaps since the tests are performed at a time when the intended users are using the app.

By the end of user acceptance testing cycles, you would know whether the features of the AUT meets the end-user requirements. User acceptance testing is ideally performance after rigorous cycles of unit testing, integration testing, and system testing.

To put it in simple terms, the system would have been appropriately tested before it reaches the UAT stage. If the testers give a green in UAT, it is an indicator that the AUT has met all the quality requirements. Now that we have covered the basics of UAT, let’s look at who are the ideal stakeholders who perform this particular form of testing.

Who should perform User Acceptance Testing

UAT is normally performed after the System Testing. It is one of the final set of tests that are carried out before the AUT is actually taken into production. Since the next step after UAT is shipping the product, it is normally conducted by the end-users or clients (in case of services companies) of the intended product (or project).

There might be a possibility that the software does not meet the quality requirements, in which case the entire cycle of tests (starting from integration tests) have to be conducted before reaching the UAT phase.

The next question that needs to be answered is “When should one perform UAT”? Since the user acceptance tests are performed after the system test, the tests must focus on whether all the requirements are met when viewed from the lens of the customers (or end-users).

In case the product is in a usable state, it means that it has passed the litmus test of UAT! Apart from the users and testers, it is recommended to involve non-technical personnel of the team. This is where you can use popular BDD (Behavior Driven Development) frameworks like Robot, Cucumber, etc. to make the most of user acceptance testing.

Different Forms Of User Acceptance Testing

Now that we have covered the basic essentials of UAT, let’s look at the different types of user acceptance tests. The type of test purely depends on the complexity of the project:

Alpha Testing

As the name indicates, this form of testing is normally performed when the product is still under the development phase. All the critical real-world scenarios are simulated using black-box and white-box testing techniques.

Since the features might be under development (or may contain some known-issues), alpha tests are normally conducted in a lab environment. Also, alpha tests are normally performed by a select set of users who might also be required to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement).

Many enterprises also choose internal users for performing the Alpha Tests so that their feedback can be appropriately rewarded along with helping to improve the product quality.

Beta Testing

Contrast to Alpha testing, beta tests are normally conducted by the real users (or the target customers). If the test results of beta testing comes out positive, there is a high probability that the product is suitable to be released for a wider audience. The reason is because beta tests are performed on external users, not on a limited set of internal users!

Understandably, beta testing is the final form of user acceptance testing. It is an essential step to seek feedback and improve the product quality. The feedback is then prioritized and issues are fixed as per the priority. Minor issues that do not hamper the product usability can still be fixed after the product is live.

There is a possibility that the team might be overwhelmed with the feedback and suggestions provided by the end-users. Accommodating all the relevant feedback into the product might delay the timelines of the product. Hence, relevant project stakeholders must prioritize the feedback and get the critical fixes implemented in the final version of the product.

User Acceptance Testing Tools

Like other forms of testing, you have the option to choose from manual and automated UAT tools. Though manual testing can be used to a certain extent, it is preferred to choose automated user acceptance testing tools since the tests can be integrated in the CI (Continuous Integration) pipeline. Cucumber, Watir, Apache JMeter, Appium, Selenium, etc. are some of the most popular open-source automated testing tools that can be used to perform different forms of tests.

Conclusion

Covering every aspect of user acceptance testing is beyond the scope of the current blog, we would deep dive into the other aspects of UAT in our subsequent blogs.

It is recommended to perform user acceptance tests since the results of the tests is a testimony on whether the product would meet the user expectations or not.

Challenges with Salesforce Testing with Selenium WebDriver

Posted on by KiwiQA

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) applications have become an integral part in solving customer queries and gathering feedback to improve product quality. As the name states, it helps in improving the relationship with the customers.

Almost all of us would have interacted (or chatted) with the CRM executives when you would have faced issues on websites in e-commerce, online travel, or any such category. CRM software is also used to capture and nurture leads that are further used for business development. Though there are a number of CRM software(s) available in the market, Salesforce still leads the race!

As per reports , Salesforce CRM has retained its #1 ranking even in 2022. It has held this position for the last nine years! In case you are a Salesforce developer, you should also focus on salesforce CRM testing along with the development of the application.

Irrespective of the form of application, it is important to use relevant automated frameworks and tools to expedite the testing process. How can we leave out Selenium WebDriver when we are discussing automated testing? For starters, Selenium WebDriver is one of the most popular test automation frameworks used for UI-based testing.

https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/salesforce-ranked-1-crm-provider-for-ninth-consecutive-year/

Selenium WebDriver is popular since it is open-source and can be leveraged to run automated tests at a large scale using cloud Selenium Grid. The test code interacts with the elements in the DOM (Document Object Model) using the corresponding browser driver and language specific Selenium WebDriver APIs.

The question is “Can Selenium WebDriver be used for automated testing of Salesforce CRM applications?” This is what we intend to unravel in this blog, the learnings of which will help you in kick-starting your Salesforce automation testing journey with Selenium WebDriver.

What is Selenium WebDriver

Selenium WebDriver is a cross-platform or cross-browser test automation framework that comes with numerous open-source APIs that let you access elements on the page (or DOM). The framework was introduced way back in 2006.

At the time of writing this blog, the latest version of Selenium is 4.5.0. Selenium 4.0 is W3C compliant which also means that you can expect your tests to be less flaky in comparison to tests written with the Selenium 3 framework. All of this is under the assumption that you have designed your Selenium automation tests well!

Selenium provides WebDriver APIs in six major programming languages – Python, Java, JavaScript, C#, PHP, and Ruby. It also has a vibrant community.

Selenium 4 Architecture

Selenium WebDriver can be used for automating scenarios of Salesforce CRM applications but there are a significant number of challenges that you would encounter in the journey!

Using Selenium WebDriver for Salesforce CRM Testing

Now that we have covered the ‘what’ of Selenium WebDriver, lets deep dive into some of the major challenges that you might encounter when using Selenium for Salesforce testing.

Handling Frames

If you have used Selenium WebDriver for automation testing, you would agree that it can be seamlessly used for handling frames (or iFrames). Salesforce CRM applications can consist of dynamic frames that can load the content inside it in a dynamic manner.

Though Selenium WebDriver provides the switchTo() method to switch to the corresponding iFrame and switch back to the parent frame; handling dynamic frames can be extremely challenging. Figuring out the ideal locator and handling nested or hidden frames in the Salesforce CRM application might increase the flakiness quotient of the test code.

Since each window in the application can have a number of frames, switching back & forth between frames and introducing delays to handle dynamic content might elongate the test code. This might have a negative impact on the maintainability of the test code.

Choosing best-suited locators

Dynamic content has been around since the time AJAX was introduced in the market. Though Selenium WebDriver can handle dynamic content, the challenge arises in choosing the best-suited locators for identifying elements on which you want to perform the respective actions.

ID, Name, CSSSelector, link text, partial link text, and XPath are some of the widely used selectors in Selenium. So where does the challenge arise if there are so many selectors up your sleeves? Well, Salesforce CRM applications are known to have numerous dynamic elements that do not have a fixed ID, class, or other popular locator.

Though you have the flexibility of using dynamic (not static) XPaths, you might end up spending a considerable amount of time in choosing ideal locators for the Salesforce CRM application. The saga does not end there, your tests might become brittle or flaky in case the locator is not inline with the changes on the front-end interface.

Choosing the ideal type of wait (i.e. Implicit wait, Explicit wait, or Fluent wait) might not be sufficient to handle issues that can come with automated testing of dynamic content. An experienced Salesforce CRM testing services company can help you in choosing the ideal automation framework for testing Salesforce CRM applications. Not only that, they can groom the QA team so that the members can use the best practices when devising tests.

Handling content in tables

The difference between some other form of web application and a CRM application is that the page might consist of a lot of dynamically populated content, including database driven tables.

Sample Salesforce CRM Application

As shown in the above Salesforce CRM application, the layout seems simple but the content in the frame on the right side looks complicated to automate! You might come across rows that are populated dynamically and varied frame layouts for different forms. Even best usage of Page Object Model (POM) design pattern and ideal locator might not be a savior in such cases.

You might also come across scenarios where tabs are created dynamically depending on the data that is shown (or selected) on the page. Existing methods like sendKeys() might not be enough for automating such complex dynamic test cases.

Apart from the major challenges mentioned above, your Selenium automation test suite must also be capable of handling Shadow DOM, dynamic pop-ups, dynamic tabs, and more.

Till now, we have seen the problem with Selenium WebDriver for Salesforce automation testing. So what is the solution? Well, instead of using code-based tools like Selenium WebDriver, you should opt for codeless automation tools like Leapwork, AccelQ, Selenium IDE, amongst others. You might face a bit of a hassle with test maintainability but the effort spent will be considerably less when compared to maintaining and scaling Selenium test suite.

Conclusion

Automation of Salesforce CRM applications is largely different when compared to automating other forms of web applications. Apart from dynamic content, you would also come across scenarios where your test has to handle dynamic tabs, dynamically loaded tables, etc.

Selenium WebDriver might not be the ideal option for automated testing of Salesforce CRM applications. Rather you should opt for codeless automation tools, few of which we have discussed during the course of this blog.

Since time to market is extremely important, it is recommended to onboard a proven global & experienced outsourced QA vendor with expertise in providing Salesforce testing services. This association will help in improving test coverage, creating maintainable and scalable tests, and accelerating the product release cycles.

What tool are you using for automating Salesforce CRM testing? Leave the name in the comments section, we will also add the tool name in this blog…

Browser Compatibility Testing Best Practices

Posted on by KiwiQA

When building web products, you would have come across scenarios where the end-user experience breaks when users are accessing the product from certain browsers or devices. Isn’t this something common for many web (or app) developers? Definitely, it is!

Such an experience is primarily due to the lack of compatibility testing on different browsers, browser versions, and operating systems (or platforms). Such a form of testing is called cross browser testing or cross compatibility testing. There is a significant amount of fragmentation in the browser and OS market since users (or consumers) have the flexibility to access your app from their choice of browser, browser version, and platform.

Desktop Browser Market Share

Shown above is the desktop browser market share, an indicator that it’s important to focus on providing a top-notch experience on different browsers. Your users would abandon your product if they face functional issues, lags, etc. when accessing the product from their choice of device(s) and browser(s). This answers the point related to browser fragmentation, the same argument also holds good for device fragmentation.

Let’s deep dive a bit further. Shown below is the browser version market share which indicates that Chrome 93.0 – quite an old version of Chrome, still holds 0.06 percent market share as of May 2022. At the time of writing this blog, the latest version of Chrome is 104.0.5112.101. This same principle also applies to other popular browsers such as Firefox, Safari, and others.

What if your team does not perform cross browser tests on Chrome 93.0 since it might be used by your target audience? This could lead to catastrophic drop in DAU (Daily Active Users), MAU (Monthly Active Users), as well as the overall revenue. In this blog, we would cover the essentials of cross browser testing, including its best practices. The points being covered in the blog are agnostic of the browser or browser version being used by the audience of your target market.

What is Browser Compatibility Testing

In simple terms, browser compatibility testing, also known as cross browser testing, is a type of testing where compatibility aspects of the app or website are tested on different browsers, browser versions, and operating systems. The idea of testing is to provide a uniform experience to the users across browsers and devices used by them.

Since customers have the option to access web apps (or websites) from tablets, phones, and desktops; it’s essential to perform cross browser tests on popular viewport sizes. Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, and Puppeteer are some of the most popular test automation frameworks for performing browser compatibility testing.

It is recommended to partner with an experienced compatibility testing company in order to achieve best test and browser coverage for your product. You should consider running cross browser tests using cloud-based infrastructure like AWS, Azure, etc. A much better option to scalable cross browser testing is running tests on cloud-based grids offered by providers like LambdaTest, BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, etc.

Benefits Of Automated Compatibility Testing

Now that we have covered some of the basic aspects of compatibility testing, let’s deep dive into some of the major benefits of compatibility testing. Manual testing is not a recommended approach, hence we would cover the benefits primarily from an automated perspective.

Improved Browser and Test Coverage

We have already covered why it is important to test the website (or app) features from different browsers and operating systems. However, the ROI of cross browser testing multiplies if the tests are performed on a wide range of browsers and operating systems.

A browser compatibility matrix can be helpful in prioritizing the combinations that matter the most to your target market. In short, browser compatibility testing is instrumental in improving the test & browser coverage; thereby improving the overall product quality.

Accelerated Parallel Execution

Parallel test execution at different levels (i.e. thread, class, method, etc.) aids in faster execution of the test scenarios. You can accelerate the time to market by leveraging the parallel execution capabilities offered by the test automation framework as well as the potential of the cloud-based test infrastructure.

Consider a test suite that has 100 test cases and each test case takes 1 minute for completion. If the tests are executed in series, the total execution time will be 100 minutes. On the other hand, the total execution time will be 20 minutes if 5 tests are executed in parallel on different browser and OS combinations.

Generation of detailed test reports

Test report is one of the integral parts of any testing activity. Product managers, project managers, test architects, and other project stakeholders can get detailed insights from the test reports. Test reports provide information on the number of tests run in a particular release, pass/fail ratio, test coverage, and much more. Test report is a true reflection of the overall quality of the product.

Automated browser compatibility testing tools generate detailed test execution reports that can be downloaded as well as shared with the concerned project stakeholders. Since the tests are executed on the cloud, team members in the project can access the test reports (present as well as past) at any point in time.

It is recommended to onboard an experienced compatibility testing services company so that you can get the maximum ROI out of cross browser testing.

Browser Compatibility Testing Best Practices

Now that we have looked into the benefits of browser compatibility testing, let’s deep dive into cross browser testing best practices.

Prioritize Browser and Platform Combinations

As discussed earlier, the browsers and operating systems used by your customers for accessing your product could differ from one market to another. For example – iOS holds close to 55 percent market share in the US market, whereas Android holds close to 95 percent market share in the Indian market. The same principle also applies for desktop (or tablet) based browsers and operating systems.

As discussed earlier, the browsers and operating systems used by your customers for accessing your product could differ from one market to another. For example – iOS holds close to 55 percent market share in the US market, whereas Android holds close to 95 percent market share in the Indian market. The same principle also applies for desktop (or tablet) based browsers and operating systems.

It is practically impossible to cover all the browser and OS combinations owing to the huge amount of fragmentation in the web browser & OS market. Hence, you need to prioritize the browser and operating systems depending on your target market.

It can be overwhelming to test on a range of combinations, hence take up the ones that matter the most for your business.

Test Early, Test Often

Like all the other forms of testing, it is recommended to kick-start cross browser testing at an early stage of product development. Be it Selenium or Cypress or Playwright or any other test automation framework, all of them support integration with popular CI/CD tools like Jenkins, Circle CI, Semaphore CI, and more.

Due to these integrations, you can run browser compatibility tests as a part of the CI (Continuous Integration) pipeline. The best part about this approach is that you get detailed reports of the test execution. You can also reduce the developer feedback time since issues are reported to the right team members, as and when they are discovered in the pipeline.

All of this lets you unearth usability and cross browser issues at early stages of the product development.

Handle Style-Related Bugs

Not all the issues discovered through cross browser tests are unique to the browser on which the tests are run. This particularly applies to styling issues that could be uncovered during browser compatibility testing.

You need to follow some basic sanity when running the tests, the major ones are mentioned below:

  • Always maximize the browser window
  • Disable pop-ups before the test execution
  • Set the browser zoom level to 100 percent
  • Avoid web crawling or spidering
  • Avoid disabling (or bypassing) of Captchas

Avoid Test Dependency

Popular frameworks like Selenium, Cypress, etc. must be leveraged for automated browser compatibility testing. Since these frameworks can be used for unit testing as well as E2E (End-to-End) testing, the tests must be designed in a manner that they are less flaky (i.e. their behavior is deterministic).

This is possible if there is zero dependency between the tests so that the result of one test has no impact on the other tests that are part of the test suite. Autonomous test design must be followed when developing the test cases.

Leverage Cloud Based Grid

Cross browser testing can turn out to be a costly affair if the testing is performed on a local infrastructure (or Grid). Apart from continuous maintenance and upgradation of the infrastructure, you would also need manpower to ensure that there is minimal (to no) downtime when executing the tests.

It is recommended to shed these infrastructure costs by opting for cloud-based grids that let you perform browser compatibility testing at scale! Since there are so many companies that offer cloud-based cross browser testing infrastructure, you need to onboard the best compatibility testing company suited to your budget and requirements.

Parallel Test Execution

Earlier in the blog, we touched upon the importance of faster feedback time. Since cross browser tests are run on a range of browser and OS combinations, it’s essential to leverage the benefits of parallel test execution offered by the test automation framework and the testing infrastructure.

Report generation, issue reporting, parallelism, and other such integral aspects must be leveraged to reduce the test execution time by a huge margin. Irrespective of the test automation framework and infrastructure being used, parallel test execution is something that must be considered when triggering every test.

Apart from the above best practices, you must also consider testing on real mobile devices instead of emulators (or simulators) since it lets you test the features of your mobile application in a wholesome manner.

Conclusion

It is a known fact that there is a huge fragmentation when it comes to browsers, view port sizes, browser versions, and platform versions. Hence, you need to invest heavily into browser and platform compatibility testing for ensuring that the users of your website or app do not witness any usability or compatibility issues when accessing the product from their preferred device.

However, opting for the best practices of cross browser testing is mandatory so that you can make the most of the testing activity. The cross browser testing best practices covered in this blog can help in realizing the compatibility testing needs at scale!

Do share your preferred browser testing best practice in the comments section of this blog…

What Role Does Crowdsourced Testing Play in DevOps?

Posted on by KiwiQA

A developer’s most extraordinary sense of fulfilment is knowing they have given their customers a high-quality product or service. Vigorous testing is required throughout the development process from end-to-end delivery to offer this quality assurance. The testing capabilities of a typical enterprise IT development team are becoming increasingly limited as technology trends quickly shift to cloud services and digital devices. It becomes quite challenging for them to keep up with the innovation as they must deal with rapid launches of increasingly complicated items.

Since crowd testing services is a popular choice for the testers to supplement testing procedures, current Quality Assurance teams are increasingly using crowdsourced software testing toolkits and services as a substitute. Also, companies are merging team members with strategy groups that create test strategies and approaches, automate processes, and manage crowdsourcing tools. Before we delve into the article, let’s get a quick idea about crowdsourced testing and DevOps.

Crowd Testing: The toolset and its associated techniques

A testing technique that essentially uses the community’s strength is called crowdsourced testing or crowd testing. This testing method uses individuals or groups and desired devices to perform various testing tasks in actual settings. As a result, this testing tool not only aids in bug and issue detection but may also give you invaluable user experience input that standard automated testing cannot. Additionally, it may produce test-team results that resemble the functionality of a few QA development test teams at part of the expense of managing and maintaining that sort of Quality Assurance infrastructure in the past. It also helps to focus and target the problem, speeding up the code review and mitigation process.

The toolset of Crowd Testing can assist in meeting simple IT budgetary requirements for defending ROI or Total-Cost-of-Ownership business support kudos to automated script-testing, synthetic user transaction functionality, widespread crowd testing participation, and more comprehensive user and system base of compatibility testing. This testing solution may be the most excellent option for dealing with team resource issues in light of tightening audit control rules and declining IT expenditures.

Why crowdsourced testing in a DevOps environment?

The implications of crowdsourced testing software are numerous and most beneficial to DevOps teams. Firstly, it enables businesses to collaborate with qualified testers proficient in several contexts, languages, and devices. These testers can also be scaled up or down if necessary. Additionally, the testers in crowdsourcing tend to be fair because they are not in contact with any organization.

Before making a product available to the general public, companies enable developers to get direct consumer insights regarding software, websites, applications, and their intended endpoints. Moreover, should any mistakes arise during the testing process, developers may review those logs if the crowdsourced testing solution also records logging. Test automation software and user testing can function along with other software testing tools. Given that human analysis is used instead of automated checks, you can compare crowdsourced testing to an external version of peer code review software.

DevOps and its emerging innovations!

DevOps is a revolutionary technological, people, and culture shift. It emphasizes teamwork and responsibility-sharing while preserving a seamless communication line between everyone involved, encouraging and enabling organizations to implement their customer-driven business needs. Automated practices optimize procedures to yield better application after each cycle.

To create a collaborative working ecosystem between the development and management teams, DevOps is dismantling organizational silos. An application’s buildout benefits from conceptualizing and designing through execution and deployment by removing departmental and hierarchical walls and hurdles. DevOps and automation work hand in hand to help meet the persistent demands generated by today’s dynamic IT environment. You will need human intellect for remarkable tasks while technology replaces routine jobs.

It seems fascinating, and crowdsourcing is a new method for the DevOps community to work closely. Since DevOps has backlog items, crowdsourcing aid in developing, creating, and delivering the new features. Early strategic intent and vision definition is necessary for crowdsourcing innovation. The first and foremost step is to implement the DevOps features. Other fascinating applications of crowd testing includes ideating a roadmap and validating new features. Understanding and interacting with the appropriate persona types is crucial from a crowdsourcing standpoint.

When we look for what automation in software testing can do well, the first thing that comes to mind is writing and running suitable testing scripts, carrying out frequent test runs, and discovering loopholes that a naked eye might overlook. Automation offers depth and detail, but it lacks a creative vision. As a result, personal oversight cannot eliminate from a software development process. Crowdsourced testing may be able to help in this situation. The Crowdsourced software plays the function of pseudo-automation and may combine the speed of automated tools with the innovation of human testers in actual test settings.

A peculiar correlation between crowdsourcing and DevOps

When you start crowdsourcing, a unique Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline splits itself across several crowd testers. All team members of a crowd testing company work together in the same software development environment as the DevOps technique. Considering crowdsourcing comprises testers from several diversified remote locations, collaborating on the same project contradicts this deception. It can consume plenty of time to coordinate and communicate with all of these remote testers, which ultimately goes against the DevOps ideology of cooperation at speed and creates a peculiar scenario for DevOps professionals responsible for delivering high-quality products after each cycle.

The crowdsourced testers and the companies employing their services must remove Communication barriers to overcome the abovementioned issue. To ensure that the crowd testers use appropriate QA techniques, explicitly defining the user requirements before starting the testing process is essential. Regularly scheduled input is critical in determining whether the remote testing team is moving on the correct path. Additionally, frequent feedback enables developers to incorporate modifications to the code immediately and finish the cycle within the predetermined period.

Crowdsourced testing in the DevOps environment works best with cloud-based platforms.

One of the best tools for a crowd-testing company is cloud technology. It significantly lowers the expenses by eliminating the requirements for extensive infrastructure. The growing awareness of the cloud among businesses and entities has been a significant driver in the evolution of crowd testing. Gathering information and sharing them has become simple for crowd testers because of cloud-based platforms and data centres. Furthermore, it is much simpler via the cloud to make data management more accurate and change integration as quickly as possible.

Leveraging remote testers to bridge the shortfall

Since many firms are switching to the DevOps approach, it leads to massive discrepancies in the skill sets of the existing resources. A company’s software development team may not always possess the necessary skill sets. In these circumstances, crowdsourcing the testing operations is found to be beneficial. Companies should hire remote testers with the capabilities lacking in their technical teams, enabling a comprehensive DevOps testing strategy.

Crowd testing services handle resource shortages but compromise data breaching.

Regarding security, it is impossible to overstate in the contemporary dynamic technological world. The tech experts are continually facing emerging security concerns due to technology advancement and IoT evolution. Higher security issues with more modern technologies necessitate stricter data protection. In a DevOps environment, the whole technical team has no less but adequate responsibility for developing a secure application, giving rise to the idea of DevSecOps. In the current cybersecurity environment, using crowd testing is equivalent to serving the application up to malicious users. Although there are hazards, it’s impossible to succeed in business without taking the initiative.

Crowdsourced testing for operational and functional scalability

While scalability is the ultimate aim of DevOps adoption, thus automation is a crucial task. A testing company potentially harness the skillset of many competent testers through crowdsourcing without actually employing them. Scaling the business does not require spending money on management systems, planning strategies and infrastructure investments. It can easily be put to work by crowdsourced testing. Companies should efficiently extend their teams and operations while accelerating time to market along with versatility, reliability and speed to make DevOps more scalable and automation easy.

Make use of reviews and feedback about the software from remote testers.

Receiving a software’s regular feedback amid various real-world environment circumstances and network situations is made feasible by the crowdsourced testers’ remote locations and global diversification. Furthermore, to give direct input on the user experience, crowd testers can be very helpful in determining how well software can sustain heaps of data workload, allowing the technical team to adjust the software’s performance accordingly.

Wrapping Up

The IT industry is engaged in a continual innovation cycle ranging from massive data centres to complete cloud solutions and manual to automated. As companies increasingly recognize the relevance of DevOps, its adoption is rising. It has become associated with high-calibre apps and software as it has gained popularity. Crowd testers are developing an approach to application QA that goes above and beyond automation. Crowdsourcing a company’s quality assurance and testing procedures has more benefits than drawbacks, notwithstanding the general fear caused by privacy concerns.

Crowd testing services fit better with DevOps since it is more adaptable than fixed, making it a savvy and economical quality control method. Although everyone should not use crowdsourcing, it is not a binary choice. However, it is a fantastic method to incorporate a little amount of automation into your operations and handle the rising burden. And most significantly, make your QA team into a model tester capable of concentrating on broader QA elements and joining the DevOps concept.

[Differences] Continuous Testing vs. Automation Testing

Posted on by KiwiQA

Over the years there has been a tremendous change in the manner in which software products are architected, designed, built, tested, and shipped to the market. The traditional waterfall model is all gone, it is replaced with the Agile model of development and testing.

On similar lines, monolithic software architecture where a unified software design was used to build products has given way to the microservices architecture. In simple terms, microservices is an architectural approach where a complex piece of software is broken down into numerous independent services with each service designed to do predefined tasks. It is akin to LEGO-styled software development that makes it easy to build, modify, remove, as well as scale complex pieces of software blocks.

Like software development, testing methodology and approach has also changed drastically as there is a laser-sharp focus on TTM (Time to Market). Automation testing is no longer enough to ship quality code, as tests have to be run in a continuous fashion. This is where continuous testing can play a major role in ensuring that the automated tests reap the maximum benefits in terms of locating & reporting bugs and improving the test coverage & overall product quality.

In this particular blog, we look at the following aspects of development and testing:

  • What is Automation Testing
  • What is Continuous Testing
  • Importance of Continuous Testing
  • Difference between Automation Testing and Continuous Testing

By the end of this blog, you would be in a position to use the continuous approach to automated testing. We would also into some of the important reasons when you might need to onboard an experienced automation testing services company for your project.

What is Automation Testing

Automation testing is the process of using automated testing tools (or frameworks) for testing aspects like scalability, reliability, security, functionality, etc. of the product. For instance, Selenium and Cypress are some of the prominent open-source frameworks that are used for front-end testing of web applications (or websites). Cloud-based grids that leverage these open-source frameworks can be further used for scalable front-end testing.

On similar lines, there are tools and frameworks to perform load testing, security testing, API testing, and more. All of these tests can be performed using the manual and automated approach but automation is preferable since it is a more scalable and reliable approach to testing.

Also Read – Automation Testing Vs. Manual Testing

Since DevOps (Development Operations) has become an integral part of the development and testing strategy, it is recommended to run automation tests in a continuous CI (Continuous Integration) pipeline.

What is Continuous Testing

Continuous testing is the process of leveraging automated testing tools in the software delivery pipeline for achieving faster developer feedback. The tests are run as a part of the CI pipeline where a set of tests (or test suites) are automatically triggered whenever any new piece of code is pushed to the repository.

Since the tests are run continuously, it helps in catching the errors at a faster pace thereby enabling the developers to fix them at a quicker pace. On the whole, continuous testing has a significant impact on the product quality since it minimizes the business risks that are associated with quality.

Business risks can be minimized to a large extent by leveraging the benefits of automation testing and continuous testing.

Importance of Continuous Testing

As mentioned earlier, the software industry is changing at a faster pace as enterprises are focussing on faster TTM. Monolithic architecture is a thing of the past, with microservices-based architecture taking the center stage. On similar lines, the benefits of automated testing tools are multiplied when used in a continuous manner.

Here are some of the major advantages of continuous testing:

  • Application architectures are becoming more complex and distributed with the advent of the cloud, API, microservices, and more. This requires rigorous testing, a requirement that can only be sufficed when automated tests are run for vital (or essential) pieces of code.
  • Delivery cycles have reduced by a huge margin. For instance, product companies like Facebook release close to 100 million lines of code on a daily basis. Just imagine the business repercussions if a particular functionality goes untested to the production server!

This is where the combination of DevOps, Agile, Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and Continuous Testing can be leveraged to ensure that quality code is shipped to the end-users.

  • Incorporating automation testing into the CI pipeline accelerates the developer feedback, thereby helping them fix issues at a faster pace. This enables companies to accelerate the overall release process since bugs can be fixed at faster speed.

Lastly, it minimizes the application-related risks as continuous testing has a significant impact on the overall quality and delivery timelines.

Many companies that are trying to test the waters of continuous testing need support in accelerating the process, this is where partnering with an experienced automation testing company like KiwiQA makes perfect business sense.

It is all about reaping the maximum benefits of automated continuous testing for your project!

Difference between Automation Testing & Continuous Testing

Now that we have covered all the important aspects of automated testing and continuous testing, let’s deep dive into what is the difference between both of them.

1. Automated testing

Automated testing is about using the right set of tools and frameworks for automating repetitive tasks. The test could be about verifying the functionalities of the front-end/back-end or even testing the non-functional aspects of the product e.g. load, security, etc. You can still verify the product features and functionalities through automated testing but running tests in a continuous fashion has major benefits.

On the other hand, Continuous testing is the process of improving the quality of the product by triggering tests (or suites) in a continual manner. You can think of it as running tests at scale for accelerating developer feedback and improving the product quality at every step!

Automation testing in different avenues (e.g. UI, API, back-end, etc.) helps in scalable testing of the product but its impact becomes massive when it is used in a CI pipeline. The combination of both can be beneficial in the era where DevOps, Agile, CI/CD, DevSecOps, etc. are used for improving product quality and accelerating delivery processes.

To put it in Black & White (B&W):

Continuous testing encompasses much more than automation testing.

2. Conclusion

In today’s hyper-competitive times, release cycles have shortened as many enterprises release features (or fixes) ‘several times’ in a single day. This is where continuous testing can do wonders as every single line of code change gets tested with the tests in CI pipeline.

Though automation testing is an integral part of continuous testing, there is a vast amount of difference between both of them. Having said that, it is recommended to leverage automated testing with CI to accelerate release processes.