Test Creation Only Accounts for ~10% of Web Test Automation Efforts
This will help explain many doubts and misconceptions about Test Automation.
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When IT Professionals talk about End to End Test Automation, there are two completely opposite views: Very Easy or Extremely Hard. However, most will agree privately that they have never witnessed real test automation success, not even once in their whole careers. This article will clarify.
For simplicity, I will explain using the most common form of automated software testing: web test automation.
Table of Contents:
· Is End-to-End Test (via UI) Automation is easy or hard?
∘ View 1: End-to-End Test Automation is Very Easy
∘ View 2: End-to-End Test Automation is Extremely Hard
· In theory, Web Test Automation should be easy , but …
· Why Do Most End-to-End (via UI) Test Automation Fail?
∘ 1. Test Creation (~10%)
∘ 2. Test Stabilization and Refinement (~30%)
∘ 3. Ongoing Maintenance (~60%)
· Summary
Is End-to-End (via UI) Test Automation is easy or hard?
There are two completely extreme answers.
View 1: End-to-End Test Automation is Very Easy
1. Salesmen of test automation tool vendors often say it is “Easy” (with their tools)
Typical selling points of expensive test automation tools are: “Record-n-Playback” and “Object Identification Utility”.
Some readers would say, all these kind of tools were outdated, and have been replaced by programming-language-based test automation frameworks, such as Selenium-WebDriver and Playwright. That’s true. However, the damage has been done, in many people’s minds, they associate test automation to record-n-playback.
“Record/playback testing tools should be…
