Best Practices for Automated Testing in Agile Environments using Appium

Software testing is essential to the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) process. Testing helps us to know if your website or web application is ready to go among the users. During the testing process, we check the compatibility, functionality, and various parameters that cumulatively define the status of the software application. 

With time, the team started to adopt automation testing for an agile environment as an alternative to manual testing. The reason to choose automation testing for an agile environment is that it increases the software quality and decreases the overall time consumption for the testing process. Appium is a well-known tool for automation testing in an agile environment. You can perform various types of testing using Appium, such as mobile, web, and hybrid applications. 

Appium is a cross-platform and open-source tool that has multi-language support. Also, there is multi-operating system support in this automation testing tool. You can use any of your preferred programming languages to write tests using Appium, such as C#, Python, JavaScript, etc. Some strategies should be followed to best use Appium for automation testing in an agile environment. In this article, you will see the best strategies that must be followed to get the best automation testing result in an agile environment with Appium.

Best Practices for Automated Testing in Agile Environments Using Appium

Here are the best and top automation testing practices in an agile environment while working with Appium

Using Right Locators

Locators is a very important part of automation testing using Appium. Appium has various locators that enable the identification and interaction with specific elements on a web page, thus ensuring that automated test scripts accurately simulate user actions. The QA team needs skilled users of various Appium locators so that the automation testing can be done efficiently and the best possible result may come. 

Using the right Appium locators is a very good practice when performing automation testing with Appium in an agile environment. 

The various Appium locators are ID, ClassName, XPath, Accessibility ID, etc. When you are writing tests, there are two ways in which you can use the Appium locator XPath. Let us see them briefly.

1. Absolute XPath: It is defined as the definite path of the element, which is used to specify the path from the root of that specific element. When using the Absolute path, updating the test script with time is a must because any change in the application can cause the absolute XPath of the element to change.

2. Relative XPath: Relative XPath is a path that does not start from the root of the element of your application. It starts with the desired element, and it is easy to locate anytime because if any changes are made to the application, they do not affect the Relative XPath.

Using POM (Page Object Model)

Any application will typically undergo upgrades and modifications according to time and testing feedback. As the program develops, locators associated with certain elements are also changed, making them obsolete in test scripts that were previously developed. This becomes a very complex task for the testing team as you need to repeat the same steps. Page Object Model here comes in light. Several POM design patterns can be used to reduce such a hectic process. The tests establish communication with the UI components using methods from the page object class. 

You do not need to worry about the changes when you use POM design patterns. Because if there is any update done in the application UI, only the code included within the POM needs to be updated. This results in using the various locators and test scripts separately. Hence, you can easily find all the modifications in a single place to support the new user interface. So, it is a best practice to use the Page Object Model when performing automation testing with Appium in an agile environment.

Test Parallelization

The ultimate goal of automation testing is to increase the test automation speed and efficiency. With fast testing speed, it should also be error-free, and there should be less manual effort. So, running the tests on each device one by one is a time-consuming task. And if you want to speed up this task, you need multiple devices, increasing resource consumption. Hence, test parallelization is the best solution in such a case. The testing team should approach parallel testing to improve testing efficiency in less time for automation testing in an agile environment with Appium.

Parallel testing is defined as a software testing process in which multiple apps or features are tested simultaneously, resulting in reduced time consumption of the testing process. It is mostly done when a new version is released for an application. As test parallelization helps run multiple tests simultaneously, it does not affect the testing quality, which is a prime concern in the automation testing process. Many types of cloud-based tools and frameworks can be used to perform parallel or distributed test automation on the cloud. Parallelization refers to the simultaneous execution of automated test scripts against various environments and device configurations, locally or as part of the developer’s CI/CD pipeline. 

One such platform that can be used is LambdaTest. LambdaTest stands out in automation testing with its AI-powered test execution and orchestration capabilities. What makes LambdaTest unique is its ability to provide users with access to a vast grid of over 3000+ real browsers and operating system combinations. This diverse testing environment ensures comprehensive coverage, allowing for thorough testing across various configurations.

But LambdaTest offers more than just traditional automation capabilities. It goes above and beyond by providing an intuitive interface and advanced features that empower teams to automate tests seamlessly. With LambdaTest, you can efficiently and effectively conduct testing across different browsers and operating systems, making it an invaluable tool for handling even the most intricate testing scenarios.

In conclusion, LambdaTest is a versatile and powerful ally for developers and testers looking to optimize their automation testing processes.

Use Appium Logs

The Appium server generates Appium logs containing a detailed record of your Appium test session execution. Appium logs can help you troubleshoot errors during the automation testing if your test session fails. Appium logs are always at the enable phase by default. Using Appium logs has proven to be a very successful strategy while performing automation testing in an agile environment with Appium because it helps to build a rich and detailed information log of the whole testing process.

When you run an automated test, you get a lot of confusing information logs. The team often gets confused and misses the important details. So, using Appium log is considered a perfect practice and strategy because it provides details like

In the Appium logs, you can easily see the desired and default capabilities. These capabilities can update the Appium server to bring the best automation testing results in an agile environment.

To keep the log lines brief, the Appium log, by default, doesn’t provide timestamps. But you can use “-log-timestamp” when starting the Appium server, which will show your logs’ timestamps. When you identify the potential bugs, you can easily identify them by the timestamp. As the log has a longer execution time, it is probably the reason for slowing your automation testing process. 

Run Tests on Real Devices

The number of devices is increasing exponentially and will keep growing as technology advances. And this huge availability of devices may cause the issue of “device fragmentation.” Device fragmentation refers to the wide variety of operating systems, screen sizes, hardware specifications, and software versions across different mobile devices. The QA and testing team used the automation testing process to reduce such issues, which was their ultimate objective. 

So, running your tests on real devices using emulators and simulators is always advised. It helps to cover the scope of testing for your application. It has proven beneficial when performing automation testing in an agile environment with the Appium tool. There are two ways in which you can use real devices for automation testing, which are as follows:

1. Using Emulators and Simulators: It is defined as the more cost-effective setup. However, they are not recommended as they are not the best option to ensure the functionality of an application. Because emulators are not capable of always acting as real devices. Hence, there are fewer chances of effective testing output.

2. Using Real Devices or Real Cloud Devices: One major concern when testing real devices is that configuring and setting up many apps may take some time to complete. So, the best option is to use a cloud-based platform to perform testing. They are easy to scale according to your needs. You just need to pay for the resources you use; it is more reliable, and less human effort is needed. Using LambdaTest for enhancing your real device testing over the cloud is beneficial.

Conclusion

Appium is considered the best automation testing framework that helps the QA team, and developers find bugs and errors early in your development process. Agile testing is a software development practice that promotes frequent, automated testing of new code as it is completed and stipulates that defects should be fixed as soon as they are found. 

In an agile environment, organizations choose the automation approach instead of the manual one. It helps to make your testing faster with much more accuracy. Human efforts decrease, and the scope of testing increases. But to get such efficient automation testing results in an agile environment, you must follow the strategies discussed in the above section.