Software quality assurance can be a synonym to a successful product, as when you properly test all the features and follow all use-case scenarios, the chances are small that some critical bugs slip through your eye before delivering the product to the target audience. 

Dealing with a little functionality it’s common to start a development project applying only manual testing when a QA specialist manually writes the test cases and goes through them without any additional tools,  but when your digital product becomes more mature, you cannot ignore automation anymore. 

With automation, human efforts are minimized in the long run because once the script is written, you start receiving benefits without the need for a specialist to dedicate a lot of time to it (only to monitor the results, and schedule autotests). 

Open-source automation testing tools like TestProject.io ensure such projects are streamlined by allowing you to re-create cross-platform conditions,  store and execute scripts, and last but not least, automating bug reports. Cost savings are the second major reason to implement it, as instead of hiring new specialists to support manual testing, you free up the existing resources. 

Automation allows to receive the results impossible with manual testing, so let’s check what test types need to be automated in the first turn:

Performance testing

Performance testing allows determining the normal working conditions for a web application like the resource consumption, required speed of Internet connection, and optimal response time. There are performance testing subsets: load testing and stress testing. The main difference between these two is that load testing simulates the natural load and tests how the system behaves when there is some activity, while the aim of stress testing is to ensure the system stability during unusual traffic spikes like big promos or DDoS attacks. 

Smoke testing

This testing type is responsible for confirming the built stability, in other words, ensuring that a new feature is ready to be tested or there will be no need to waste the resources as some core functionality is broken. It helps to receive immediate feedback on any severe defects and reduce the risks of releasing the faulty application as if the test is not passing the build needs to be reworked before moving to the next stages. 

Regression testing

Every time a new feature is released, it’s not enough to test only what was changed but to ensure that there are no conflicts between new and existing elements, so in regression testing, specialists are making sure that the old pieces of code are working as expected. Doing the same thing manually every time may lead to missing some critical points due to inattentiveness and the scope will be increasing after every release. 

Unit testing

This one usually takes place during the development and helps to test the functionality of a single function i.e. unit to make sure it’s working correctly in isolation. It simplifies the troubleshooting if something is working not as expected. Automating unit testing is done first and foremost to speed up the process as going manually through every single function in a code may be a time-consuming task.

Starting automation even by smaller steps will help your team to achieve better coverage and increase the effectiveness of the testing process to ensure that end-users deal with products only of the highest quality. 

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Adam is a partner in B2BNN with over 15 years experience in the enterprise technology field.