Anna Thorsen
With brick and mortar stores closed during an on-going pandemic, websites, especially e-commerce websites, have to focus more than ever on creating quality customer experiences online. This has created a need for faster testing and new website functionality.
There are lots of options when choosing a web automation platform for web applications. Perhaps the most common is Selenium WebDriver. But how can you use Selenium test automation without having to code to ensure your testing is more collaborative and faster with the fewer resources you have available?
What you’ll find in this article:
- Evaluating mobile web automation testing tool
- The pros and cons of web testing using Selenium Webdriver
- Automating mobile web testing using codeless Selenium
Evaluating a mobile web automated testing tool
Ideally, to get your website features out the door as quickly as possible, you need to look at automation from a different perspective.
Finding the best tool for your mobile test automation has to start with finding a suite of methods and solutions that work together.
There are, however, points you want to take into consideration.
- What tests do you need to automate? It’s common that you’ll have more to test on mobile than desktop as you have unlimited configurations on a mobile. On desktop they are limited. To learn more, read our post what is mobile web testing and why it should be automated.
- What does your remaining IT landscape look like, and which platforms, systems and applications do you need to support as a part of this?
- How much will it cost to train employees to use the tool? You’ll need to consider not only onboarding, but also continuous usage and maintenance of the tool.
- Does the tool need to integrate with Application Lifecycle Management tools such as Jenkins and Bamboo?
The pros and cons of web testing using Selenium Webdriver
Selenium is possibly the most used tool for automated testing in browsers. It’s free, open-sourced, and works with most programming languages. Selenium also works across browsers and operating systems.
The downside of Selenium is that it requires time and dedication to learn the programming language, to build automation, and in addition to that comes maintenance. This takes time away from more value-generating tasks, such as exploratory testing, and prevents testers from scaling their automated testing.
To create an automated end-to-end test from web to Desktop, it requires a different tool than Selenium. With no reporting features, it’s also harder and more time-consuming to find out how many tests failed.
To get the most out of automation, businesses are following versions of agile development practices. This includes closer collaboration between business people and developers, and adopting tools that enable sustainable development that scales.
With these kinds of development practices in hand, departments can live up to the standard of more frequent quality deliveries. So how does no-code come into the equation?
Automating mobile web testing using codeless Selenium
Using Selenium Webdriver, Selenium IDE and Selenium Grid, developers can build web automation in browsers using code. It’s a great free solution for testers, but it’s not as helpful when automating more complex scenarios where multiple products and services need to work together.
Leapwork’s automation tool uses Selenium under the hood and removes the complexity of coding, instead replacing it with intuitive building blocks. This visual approach to automation makes it easier for businesses to scale their automation as their test suite grows.
It also means that a tester doesn't have to become an expert in Java, C++, or Python. This is particularly beneficial for teams who need to deliver at a faster pace, as testers, regardless of their skill level, have the tools they need to build and maintain tests from day one.
In the video below, you’ll see a side-by-side comparison of how quickly you can automate a test case. One the left, you’ll see a no-code test automation platform using Selenium under the hood. On the right, you’ll see an automated test case using only Selenium.
The ability to create test cases quickly can bring immense value to development teams who can simplify test case scenarios. With the capabilities of no-code, testers and developers are armed with the latest technology needed to get their new web application features to market at speed.
See no-code in action in this webinar, and find out more about how to build maintainable and scalable automation.
