Showing posts with label selenium automated testing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label selenium automated testing. Show all posts

Friday, 3 April 2015

What Needs to Be Checked Before Hiring a Selenium Tester?

As an open source software testing framework, Selenium makes it easier for organizations to test a wide variety of websites and internet applications. Despite being a portable software testing framework, Selenium works seamlessly with major operating systems, web browsers, and programming languages. The testing professionals can use Selenium drivers to write test scripts in a number of programming.

selenium web testing, selenium automated testing, selenium testerThe record/playback tool provided by Selenium, at the same time, enables them to author tests without learning any test scripting language. So an organization can use Selenium to effectuate the testing of websites and web applications. However, it is always important for the enterprises to hire the right Selenium testers by focusing on a number of important skills.

Important Skills to Focus on while Hiring a Selenium Tester

Understanding of Commonly Used Web Technologies: As noted earlier, Selenium can be used for testing a variety of browser-based applications. Nowadays, most internet applications are developed using HTML, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX and XML. Also, web developers use agile methodologies to make the application more interactive and responsive. The testers can use Selenium to effectively run repeatable tests. But it will be easier for the testing professional to develop test automation, if he is familiar with the commonly used web technologies.

Programming Knowledge: The testers can use Selenium drivers to write test cases in several languages including Java, PHP, C#, Python and Ruby. The record/playback tool provided by Selenium further enables them to author test without learning any test scripting language. But the testers often have to build large test suites from scratch while testing large and complex web applications. Further, they have to define the architecture of the Selenium WebDriver tests. So it is always important to hire a Selenium tester who has experience in writing code in any of these programming languages.

Knowing How to Select the Right Selenium Tools: Each organization has option to use either Selenium IDE or Selenium WebDriver. But most enterprises opt for Selenium IDE if their testers do not know any programming or testing language. On the other hand, Selenium WebDriver enables testers to create browser-based regression automation, and distribute the script across multiple environments. So each tester must know how to pick the right Selenium tool to effectuate and speedup web browser automation.

Familiarity with Selenium Best Practices: It is also important to check if the tester is familiar with the best practices for automating web browsers using Selenium. For instance, to reduce test maintenance and reduce code duplication, most Selenium testers nowadays use Page Object Design Pattern. The design pattern makes it easier for testing professionals to keep the test code and page specific code separate. When the Selenium tester has already implemented such best practices, it will be easier for him to reduce the amount of time required to develop and maintain tests.

Level of Experience: Each organization wants to hire a QA professional who have experience in testing a variety of web applications using Selenium. So you must evaluate the candidate’s level of experience. At the same time, you also need to check the candidate’s domain knowledge and expertise. For instance, if you are developing web-based financial products, you must check if the Selenium tester has already tested similar application. The domain expertise is essential, along with experience, to effectuate the web application testing.

The interviewer must ask the testing professional a set of questions to ensure that he know how to use Selenium effectively to automate web browsers across different platform. However, the interview questionnaire will vary according to the candidate’s skill levels. For instance, the experienced Selenium testing professionals must have programming skills, in addition to adequate domain expertise. To get maximum benefits of testing, you may consider hiring services of a
selenium web testing company.

We provide
selenium automated 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.

Tuesday, 23 December 2014

The Future of Selenium Automation Testing

selenium web testing, selenium test automation, hire selenium testersAutomated testing is replacing the manual process gradually as it increases effectiveness as well as efficiency. In this regard, the Selenium Automation Testing has become popular with the developers. Selenium is an open source tool that receives huge support from the developers. In fact, in the recent years, it has developed as a popular automation testing tool as organizations are increasingly adopting it as software testing tools commercially. The major factor why it is so popular is because of the cost. Enterprises today are opting for cutting costs. Under such circumstances, Selenium proves to be a better tool when compared to the costlier ones. Open source is always a cost effective, long term solution even if it comes with a steep learning curve.

There are various reasons why the future of Selenium looks quite promising. Every organization is looking forward to optimize the feel, look as well as performance of the apps in order to deliver an impressive user experience. In this regard, Selenium testing is perfect. Other reasons are as following:

Free and open source: It was released under Apache 2.0 license by ThoughtWork. Therefore, the framework is open source and it is conveniently downloaded by the users. Moreover, there are no fees to be paid. Its free nature aids in cutting down the testing costs. It can be easily accessed by small, medium as well as large companies as well as independent quality analysts.

OS and Web Browser support: For the web apps it is necessary to run across all the browsers as well as the operating systems. This is required to keep the visitors engaged. The professionals need tools that will enable them to evaluate the app performance quickly on the popularly used browsers. It presently supports Firefox, IE and Chrome. The web browsers can be launched simply and then run the tests. For recording and playing back the test scripts Mozilla Firefox can be used. Various operating systems this framework is suitable too, including, Linux, Windows, Solaris and OS X.

Selenium IDE comes to rescue: There are advanced tools in the Selenium IDE that enables the professionals to record, edit and debug the tests. There is no need of any extra effort. There are tools that might test the web application tests. There are options where the test scripts are manually edited to optimize the test management. The auto completion features can be used to edit the test scripts and proceed with the command.

Selenese – the programming language: The language in which test scripts are written is called Selenese. However, the testers can choose to write the scripts by choosing a language of their choice as well. Various programming languages, like, Java, Ruby, Perl, C#, PHP, Python, etc are also supported by Client API. Hence, the professionals can choose the client API keeping in tandem with their programming language.

Proper support and documentation: Proper training is required for the professionals when they migrate to the new web application. Adequate documentations are provided with its tools. Therefore, the professionals can use the guide to comprehend the functioning of the tools. If you are working with Selenium IDE then you will find complete functional references to which the testers can refer to. In addition there are several organizations that provide support related to this software tool to the clients.

In addition to these, the companies also have the choice to choose from an array of Selenium components keeping in sync with the requirements of the web applications. Besides the Client API and IDE, the professionals can also make use of Selenium Remote Control.

Finally, the greatest strength of this automated testing lies in its flexibility. There are several ways in which new functionalities can be added to the framework as well as the test scripts. This kind of customization popularizes its usage. Being open source, it can be downloaded and modified anytime. Thus, as far as the near future is concerned, it is here to stay. To get maximum benefits of testing, you may consider hiring services of a selenium web testing company.

We provide selenium test automation services. If you would like to hire selenium testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

Wednesday, 10 December 2014

A Look at Some Basic Things about Selenium Automation Testing Tool

selenium automated testing, selenium web app testing, selenium testerIn the software industry once a product reaches the phase where it has to be tested manually, every organization toys with the idea of automated testing in order to save the cost that is associated with manual testing. The cost is undoubtedly, an important factor for any project. As a result, several enterprises prefer the open source test automation tools instead of opting for commercial tools that are quite costly. In addition the open source automation testing tools offer competitive features for testing the both the web and software applications automatically. In this regard, there are several testing tools that are perfect for Web, regression, UAT, etc. As far as the open source tools are concerned, Selenium is, perhaps, the best option that you can get.

Why use Selenium?

This is a basic question that any organization might ask. With so many open source tools available why choose Selenium? The reason behind the popularity of Selenium lies in its multiple functions. Firstly, it is applicable for both GUI as well s the functionality. It can also be applied as a unit testing tool as far as JavaScript is concerned.

Components present in Selenium

This tool has several tests components within its test package. However, there are 3 major tools that help in developing the automatic testing process for web applications – Selenium Grid, IDE and RC. The IDE is used as a Firefox extension that is used to record the test suites and cases. The Selenium RC is utilized to run tests on various systems and browsers. Finally, the Grid can run many instances of the RC at a time. In addition, there is the Qualitia and Tellurium that acts as a wrapper for the tools’ engine.

Let’s take a look at these components in details:

Selenium IDE: This is a completely integrated development environment for testing. Implemented as a Firefox add-on, it also enables editing, debugging and recording tests. Initially, known as the Recorder, the IDE was donated to the Selenium project in the year 2006.

With the help of this component scripts can recorded and edited automatically. This provides a support to the auto completion and helps to move the commands quickly. The recording is done in Selenese (a special language for scripting). It offers the commands in order to perform the actions in a browser. It is also used for retrieving data from the result pages.

Client API: Besides using Selenese there are various other languages that can be used for writing tests. The tests then make us of the Client API to communicate with Selenium. This client is presently used for Ruby, Java, Python and C#.

Remote Control: This is a server that has been written in Java. It easily accepts the commands through HTTP for the browsers. The RC makes it possible for the programmers to write automated tests in any kind of programming languages, especially for the web applications. This enables netter integration of the Selenium in the already existing unit test framework.

WebDriver: This is recognized as the successor of RC. The Selenium WebDriver accepts commands that are either sent through Client API or Selenese. These are finally sent to the browser. The USP of this tool is that it can start a browser instantly as well as control it.

Selenium Grid: This is a server that enables the tests to utilize the web browser instances that are running on the remote machines. Here one of the servers will act as the hub. The tests will contact the hub so that to access the browser instances. There is a list of servers in the Grid that helps to achieve this end. It will also allow the tests to run parallel on the multiple machines, manage the various browser versions and its configurations from a central point.

These are some of the basic aspects about the Selenium tool that would actually help the programmers during the automated testing process. To get maximum benefits of testing, you may consider hiring services of a selenium automated testing company.

We provide selenium web app 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.