Tools

Traditional GUI automation is linear; it follows a set of steps. The first time you run it, it can't add any value, as the feature isn't done until the automation runs. Once test automation runs a second time, it effectively becomes change detection. This leads to a large number of "failures" that are not actually failures. Whether they are false positives or false negatives, we need a way to fix the automation tooling.

While automation can help you save time and money in your testing activities, there are a few hidden costs that many teams overlook. Aspects that don't have a price tag initially—such as what it will take to learn, adopt, and maintain a new automation tool—will end up costing you in the long run. Think through these considerations and answer some questions before jumping into your automation initiative.

Teams everywhere are looking to speed up testing without sacrificing quality, so once again, some of the top articles last year were about continuous integration, machine learning, and—of course—how to best implement and use test automation. But readers were also interested in what they shouldn't be doing, with two high-ranking articles about test practices we should stop and a tool you may be misusing.

Selenium has widespread adoption as a test automation tool, but it comes with some challenges. We talked to some experts in the test automation industry about Selenium’s reign as the tool of choice for UI testing, whether that crown is warranted, and what they think is important for teams to focus on when it comes to their test automation efforts. Then, Parasoft talks about how teams can solve UI testing challenges and make Selenium more maintainable with its new product, Parasoft Selenic.