Best practices in API Automation Testing

Before we get into the depth of the best API automation testing practices, let us start with – what API automation actually is. An API or Application Programming Interface can be defined as a collection or set of functions as well as procedures known as API calls, that are executable by various software applications. Now, coming to API automation testing, it is the mechanism in which a test support application that links API and systematically exercises the functionality thereof, is created for simulating the end user application of the API.

Now, let us discuss the best tried as well as tested practices of API automation testing. The practice generally should involve the following steps in a chronological manner.

Planning the test

Before starting off with the testing as well as writing test codes, one should at first spend a certain amount of time, chalking out strategies about the ways that need to be adapted during testing and more importantly, about the things that needs to be evaluated.

Now, depending upon the complexity of the tests, the process of planning should vary. A thorough design documentation needs to be done as this will make the process of testing much easier along with less time consuming.

Organizing the entire thing

This is the second step of the assessment. You need to organize the evaluation in a proper way so much so that it will have a positive impact on the productivity, efficacy, as well as maintenance of the tests. It helps in the betterment of the software performance. For example, all the tests that are to be conducted for a particular API should be under a single file. Then again, the file in question should be named after the API that is subjected to evaluation. What happens because of this is that it makes easier for the other users to locate all the test cases, and spend the up-front expenditure for ensuring that the foundation is firm as well as clean. While some procedures need to be tested in pairs and groups, there are certain procedures that need to be tested in singles.

Each and every case needs to be self-contained as well as isolated from the dependencies as much as possible, It helps the developers when it comes to copying individual cases into a definite stand-alone application or in the individual unit-test framework of a user.

Setting the Priorities

As and when the test cases are developed, against the popular practice of going straight away to an invalid test, it is important to set priorities. It makes easier for the testers to put more emphasis on the mainline cases at first, before opting for any other issue.

In fact, one should ascertain the test cases that need to be conducted at first. This purely depends upon the instinct of the tester. It is the tester who will have to ascertain which cases that will have to be tested first. Prioritizing the tests will only make the process simpler.

Development

Depending upon the mode of evaluation, it might turn out beneficial for the tester to store the state information in variables that can easily be accessed. If the test breaks when stressed, it is imperative that a proper investigation is done on the machine along with all the variables involved in the tests. During development, it is better to keep all the previous state information handy, particularly if the test case in question deals mainly with arbitrary data.

Configuration

Another very common as well as useful practice of API testing is changing the run-time behavior. As the testing starts, logging out of the system along with the assessment parameters is an imperative. The exact configuration as well parameters can be recreated from a log file. If each and every evaluation case performs its own configuration setup and initialization, it is imperative to evaluate the real life scenarios.

Validation

Validation of the test's behavior is another important practice, though at times, testers tend to ignore it and this leads to false positives and negatives or presence of non-actionable bugs even after testing is completed. When evaluating the test cases, one should assume that it will fail initially and then the real challenge is to prove that it works or does not work in a proper way. If you are planning to hire service of automation testing companies, you must evaluate them to see if they are sufficiently agile or not!

We provide test automation services. If you would like to get your application tested by our certified automation testers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Best Practices For Testers, Testing Mobile Games

With the introduction of state of the art smart phones and mobile phones, newer avenues of game development have opened up. The games that are now developed for these devices come up with a string of value added features that make them all the more attractive to the gamers. Now, as these games get increasingly high tech, the testing techniques also get increasingly complex. Let us discuss some of the best practices that a tester is required to carry out, for evaluating these games.

User Interface and Functionality testing

When it comes to evaluating modern high end mobile gaming, the QA or Quality Analysis along with functionality testing is extremely important. They need to be extensive as it is imperative to test quite a number of parameters like UI and functionality, graphics performance, multiplayer experience, cross platform performance, consumption of the battery and last but not the least, memory leakage or usage.

Again, when we speak of functionality along with UI testing of the mobile gaming, the two main elements that need to be tested are visual appeal along with game play. Thus, the main aspects of a mobile game that need to be elaborately examined include:

Screen

It needs to be seen that the title screen is properly designed so that it never causes eye sore for the gamer as the individual logs in to play the gaming package in question. The first impression is always the best impression.

Menu Functions

This is another aspect that needs to be evaluated properly. It needs to be examined whether the menu functions are working properly or whether it is easy to navigate through the menu.

Flow of the Game and the rules of playing the game

The gaming package play needs to be absolutely progressive without any jerk and it is to be seen that the game itself is not too hard to play for it may deter the gamers. Again, a too simple game will cause boredom for the gamer. A right balance needs to be struck.

The parameters that need to be evaluated include the character models along with the levels of the gaming, designing of the scenes and secondary characters (if any), creation of the right ambiance, the opponents from the gamers’ perspective (in case of first person gaming), collectibles (if any) and how hard or simple it is to collect them, the variety of collectibles, their frequency, the scoring mechanism (it needs to be accurate as well as simple), the extent of social networking interactions, the background music along with the overall ambiance that is created. The finesse along with the compactness of the gaming package also needs to be evaluated as they play a pivotal role in keeping the gamers glued to the game.

If all these parameters are needed to be checked, there are other aspects of mobile game testing as well. Other parameters that are to be tested should include the graphics and the UI of the gaming package, the usability of the buttons as well as the navigational flow, grammatical texts as well as the fonts, special effects as well as the animation of the characters, the sound effects, screen orientation, screen resolution and the likes. Now that we have discussed the parameters that need to be checked, let us turn our attention to the other testing practices that are to be maintained.

1) Play the game first hand: Playing the game is not that easy for a tester. The first step of the evaluation is running a string of assessments, some of which are very specific and consists of a series of step-by-step instructions.

2) Identifying the bugs: Testing a mobile gaming package basically has two principle objectives. While one of them is detecting the defects that are embedded in the gaming codes as well as designs, the other is demonstrating the parts of the game that are functioning in a proper way. If the examination does not detect any glitch, the game “passes” the test and when the evaluation detects any issue, then the game “fails”.

3) Amplification: This practice involves narrowing down all the likely scenarios for a particular bug or glitch to occur. Now this can be performed in two feasible ways – early testing and checking all the points.

4) Notification: Once a glitch or a bug is detected, it is imperative that the developers are instantly notified so that it can be taken care of without any delay whatsoever.

Once that is done, the buck passes on to the developers who will take care of the glitch, eliminate it and send it back to the testers’ desk for another round of testing. If you are planning to hire service of game testing companies, you must evaluate them to see if they are sufficiently agile or not!

We provide Game testing services. If you would like to get your games tested by our Game testing experts, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Benefits of Selenium as Automation Testing tool

To ensure flawless user experience, it is an absolute essential to test the web applications. Constant changes have to be made to applications as well as websites; even the number of browsers supporting are increasing continuously. These facilitate the necessity of having efficient as well as effective test automation solution so that ongoing testing is made possible which leads to rapid bug isolation and ultimately exceptional performance.

The open source toolset called Selenium enables efficient as well as effective GUI or Graphical User Interface test automation for web applications. This set contains various software tools, all of which have various approaches in support of test automation. However, mostly engineers focus on one or at the most two tools to meet their project’s needs. But learning about all of them offers a person with various options to approach varying problems since each has particular roles to play. Using this tool offers a multitude of benefits. Some of the notable features are given below.

One time scripting that can be run on multiple browsers- The benefits and features may not be the same with the same script running on multiple browsers, but it does save a lot of hassles. When testing the application on various browser versions, you will definitely feel the enormous advantage of running the same script sets in multiple browsers.

Choosing the language of your taste- With this advantage you get the indirect benefit of easy plugging into the engineering architecture. For example, those familiar with Java, can reap benefits of technical expertise as well as knowledge related to that topic. You can also take advantage of the various tools like reporting tools, build systems, IDE, etc used by your development branch. All you have to do is simply transfer the know-how to the QA team; in fact, in all probability they are already familiar with it.

Integration with ecosystem- If you need to integrate with various suite of tools such as QMetry, Hudson, etc you can easily avail of the solutions which are already out there, making the integration process easier. You do not need to make any investment for purchasing of tools; a test automation infrastructure can be easily created at par with commercial tool suites. If the tests have to be run in parallel, then also there are plenty of solutions available.

Supporting multiple test frameworks- Selenium is actually sort of a GUI driving library and not just a testing tool. Users are allowed by this tool to wrap test scripts in a framework of their taste. They can use whatever framework they like and reap advantages offered by the particular capabilities of the framework.

Software suite with community support- Selenium users are able to take advantage of a number of tools. Firefox plugins can assist you in running as well as recording of your tests. Another tool helps in the taking of tests so that they may be deployed in clustered environment to optimize your resource usage.

Applicability to AJAX- This feature is an inherent one; when the tool works in your browser, the main technology that drives the test case and AUT or application under tests work side by side. This enables immense control over AJAX web application testing.

Through this automation testing tool total test cycle is reduced to 8 hours from 2 weeks. The release cycles become shorter and the nearshore model leads to overall cost reduction by 60%. Testing cases are not only low maintenance but they may be reused as well. There are a multitude of other advantages and features associated with Selenium web testing tool which can be reaped during usage. It also makes it possible for you to introduce benchmarks so that software quality may be increased. For any kind of problem or information, you can always turn to the several web communities as well as excellent quality documents.

We provide Selenium web application testing services. If you would like to discuss with a certified Selenium tester from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.