In the current generation of application testing and production, efficiency is one of the most important factors that have influenced the lives of developers and testers. This is because quickly delivering high-quality applications is becoming one of the top priorities for maintaining a positive brand image of the company.
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Selenium WebDriver and Headless
Browser Testing: Improving Test
Execution Speeds
by Belayet H. | 0 comments
In the current generation of application testing and production, efficiency
is one of the most important factors that have influenced the lives of
developers and testers. This is because quickly delivering high-quality
applications is becoming one of the top priorities for maintaining a
positive brand image of the company.
To efficiently implement such a practice, various innovative features like
Selenium WebDriver, headless browser testing, and implementation of
cross-browser testing are crucial. While implementing these practices, the
application developers and testers should also try to gather adequate
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information on the requirements of the target audience to properly
customize the application.
With this article, we are going to understand how app developers can
improve test execution speed in the modern application development
lifecycle. We will also understand the contribution of Selenium WebDriver
and headless browser towards achieving this goal.
Understanding the Market of Automation
Testing
During the early years of the Internet, app-developing companies had
dedicated human developers who would individually verify the functioning
of all the elements present in an application. However modern apps
consist of thousands of different elements that need to be verified both
individually and as a combined infrastructure. So, it is almost impossible to
compile this process depending on manual testers.
As a substitute, the system can use advanced automation testing practices
which use a text file consisting of all the required parameters and
datasets. With this text file, the system can emulate human interactions
and communications. Based on these studies, the system will develop a
detailed report justifying the usability and user interactivity of the
application.
The app developers can also implement changes in the predetermined
parameters of the test file to customize the requirements according to the
project. It is also possible to store huge segments of existing automation
test data and reuse them in future projects.
However, automation testing comes with a massive disadvantage in the
form of investment. These investments will cover the charges for multiple
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plugins, libraries, and dependencies critical for the proper execution
process. So, companies must have enough resources to justify these
transitions.
The World of Headless Browser Testing
Headless browser testing is the process of initiating a browser instance
without its Graphical User Interface. This means that the system will not
have to render all the user interface elements, visual aesthetics, and other
elements of the UI. This process massively improves the efficiency of the
browser instances and also the loading time for the test case execution
process. Modern automation testing frameworks and test suites like
Selenium natively support the use of headless browser testing.
For instance, while using Selenium, the application developers can access
the headless counterparts of Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox. Google
Chrome is also available with the help of certain dependencies and library
inclusions.
Headless browser testing can also be beneficial when the application
developers are using low-end systems that cannot render multiple GUIs at
the same time. Finally, many developers believe that headless browser
testing has a massive benefit in improving the efficiency of parallel test
cases.
Integration of Selenium
Selenium is one of the veterans in the segment of automated web app
testing. Its open-source infrastructure consists of multiple individual tools
that assist the developers at different stages of the application testing
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process. The core framework of Selenium is based on the popular
programming language, JavaScript.
This means that the developers and testers do not have to go through an
extensive learning curve for writing test cases with Selenium. Moreover,
since Selenium is open source, it does not require any investment for its
features. However, this test suite is only applicable when the application
developers are working with web applications. This means that for other
applications like native apps hybrid apps and cross-platform apps,
Selenium won’t be usable.
Now let us briefly understand the rule of all the tools present in the
Selenium Test Suite:
We will begin our discussion with the Selenium WebDriver as it is one
of the most important components of the entire testing
infrastructure. With the Selenium WebDriver, the application
developers can begin, execute and redirect the test cases to the
respective elements present in a web application. The Selenium
WebDriver can also conduct test cases in a native environment of
multiple modern browsers without dedicated test engines.
While using Selenium, the application developers can execute
codeless automation testing using the Selenium Integrated
Development Environment. This tool analyzes user interactions and
generates automation test cases in real-time. So, for using it, the app
developer simply has to interact with the application like a normal
user.
Next, in certain cases, the app developers will be forced to manually
write the automation test scripts. For such a scenario, the Selenium
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client API will be highly useful. This is because it allows you to write
automation test cases in any of the preferred programming
languages like Python, Java, Ruby, and many others.
Finally, the Selenium grid has an important role in improving the
efficiency of modern complex test cases. This is because it can handle
multiple test instances at the same time and redirect them to a target
element. Using this tool, it is also possible to initiate multiple
instances of different test configurations on different systems.
Advantages of Cross-Browser Testing
While improving the test execution speed, the application developers can
benefit a lot from the integration of cross-browser testing. This is because
it helps the testers to verify the stability and usability of the application
irrespective of shifts in operating system, device hardware, and software
configurations.
With the help of cross-browser testing, it is possible to reuse a single test
instance on multiple browser drivers. Moreover, app developers can
benefit a lot from the integration of cross-browser testing with automation
testing. This will allow the system to automatically conduct the test
instances on multiple browsers at the same time.
Improving the Test Execution Speeds
To simplify the understanding process for new automation testers and
developers, we have created a list of some of the important parameters,
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features, and practices that can help to improve the test execution speeds:
Testing an application on real devices is highly essential to
understand its functioning based on multiple use case scenarios.
However, the setup and maintenance process of a real device lab is
very complex and expensive. It also slows down the application
testing process drastically. Instead, app developers can use cloud
platforms that achieve similar test results while eliminating physical
labs and geolocation barriers. These platforms also integrate legacy
devices and parallel testing. To achieve all of these goals, cloud
platforms use real devices present on remote servers that can be
accessed through the Internet. Let us learn more about these
platforms with LambdaTest:
For the basic introduction, we can say that LambdaTest is a smart digital
experience testing cloud that helps businesses test their products faster
and better. It lets you do real-time and automation testing on various
devices and environments.
It supports the test execution from multiple automation testing
frameworks and suites like Selenium, Cypress, and Playwright.
LambdaTest is also suitable for the verification of web pages that have
local host servers. Many companies from around the world, more than
10,000 with over 2 million users, trust LambdaTest for their testing
requirements.
The application developers can also try to customize their test cases
and optimize them. For instance, it is very important to analyze and
identify any slow-running or redundant test cases. Removing or
optimizing them can massively improve the speed of the entire
process.
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As we already mentioned earlier, the integration of parallel testing
has a massive role in improving the coordination and speed of the
application development project.
It is very important to properly isolate certain test cases so that they
do not rely on the state of the previous test cases. Moreover, the
developers must remember that they can easily run isolated test
cases in parallel configurations without affecting the functionality of
the existing test cases. This process also helps to eliminate errors like
false positives and false negatives.
While using headless browsers, the application developers should
also integrate agile methodologies like continuous integration and
continuous development. This process will automatically trigger the
test cases and help them to run in a headless environment without
the intrusion of any graphical environment.
The integration of browser profiles can massively allow developers to
save useful settings, user preferences, and cookies. This process will,
in turn allow the faster test setup by reusing these profiles at the time
of browser initialization.
The Selenium WebDriver provides various modern methods like
explicit and implicit wait that can highly affect the functioning of the
automation testing process. With the help of explicit and implicit wait,
it is possible to automatically pause the execution of the testing
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process until the completion of the previous one. After this process,
the system will automatically initiate the testing process and display
the final result. All this is useful when the app developers are working
on certain elements that are closely integrated and rely on each other
for proper functioning.
The application developers and testers must plan to minimize the
amount of test data that they will require to set up before running the
automation test case. Various techniques like test data factories or
test data generation can help the app developers to create data on
the go whenever it is required by the application testing lifecycle. We
would also advise the app developers to include the business and
production teams during the test planning stage. It will allow to create
a basic awareness of the current progress in the application
development life cycle.
These were some of the most important practices that can help app
developers to improve the execution speed of the application. However,
we would advise the developers to go through the documentation of
Selenium WebDriver to find certain other features that might be useful
regarding the unique requirements of their application.
The Conclusion
Hope now it’s clear how to efficiently implement such a practice, various
innovative features like Selenium WebDriver, headless browser testing,
and implementation of cross-browser testing are crucial. With this article,
we analyzed some of the best practices, parameters, and features that can
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help app testers to improve the test execution speed of the modern
application development and testing infrastructure.
The integration of automation testing plays a vital role in this process. So,
app developers should constantly integrate multiple new trends and
innovations that are revolutionizing automation testing practices. The
choice of a suitable automation testing tool plays a critical role in the
utilization of the test environment.
Companies can conduct seminars and awareness campaigns to spread the
required knowledge regarding healthy automation testing practices.
Finally, developers should try their best to constantly update their
applications to make them suitable according to the standards of the
market.
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