Gone are the days when QA teams relied solely on manual techniques for testing software products. Manual methods of software testing have always often been lengthy and cumbersome to be executed. Owing to the complexities of manual processes, QA and development teams have shifted to automated processes in order to improve the testing cycles and ensure delivering stellar user experiences.

1. Pros and Cons of key test automation
frameworks
Gone are the days when QA teams relied solely on manual techniques for
testing software products. Manual methods of software testing have always
often been lengthy and cumbersome to be executed. Owing to the
complexities of manual processes, QA and development teams have shifted
to automated processes in order to improve the testing cycles and ensure
delivering stellar user experiences.
These testing frameworks are a vital part of any entire testing process that
help enterprises reduce maintenance costs while ensuring a higher ROI. This
article walks through the most important types of frameworks leveraged
today and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

2. What is a test automation framework?
A test automation framework consists of tools, guidelines, resources, and
rules that are required to automate testing workflow. This provides multiple
advantages that assist in the efficient development, implementation, and
monitoring of the test scripts. Further, the test automation framework offers
the crucial information and resources that teams require to execute the test
cases in one place.
What are the various components of the
test automation framework?
Following are some of the critical components in the test automation
framework.
● API: An API necessarily needs to be present for the framework to
work, which can be a RestAssured API, Driver API, Selenium, WinApp,
or any other API.
● Efficient libraries: To ensure the success of an automation
framework, it is important to compile and arrange test cases suitably.
For this, one requires efficient libraries to store and manage the test
cases seamlessly. It is vital to compile libraries of reusable test steps
of the basic utilities that can be leveraged as the foundation of
automated test scripts.
● Test data management: Test data can be efficiently stored in a
separate file so that to modify it, one need not modify the script. All
that is required is to access the data and modify it accordingly.

3. Additionally, there must be a robust library that can be leveraged to
search across the voluminous production data to find out the one that
is suitable for testing.
● Testing tool: To run a test automation framework, teams require an
array of tools for executing different functionalities. Functionalities
like traffic generation, defect tracking, requirement analysis, and
others require separate tools. Additionally, today there has been an
exponential rise in tools for mobile automated testing in an attempt
to cater to the rising number of mobile device consumers. With the
increased smartphone penetration and the need to deliver seamless
mobile experiences, teams must ensure adopting the right testing
framework.
The primary types of test automation
framework
1. Module-based testing framework
This framework is based on a prominent OOPs concept known as
'abstraction.' The whole application under test is split by the framework into
several numbers of isolated and logical modules where for each module, a
separate and independent test script is created. These scripts can be
combined together to build a larger script constituting more than one single
module.
Advantages:

4. ● Easy scope of automation owing to the high degree of modularization
● Easy and cost-efficient maintenance
● Ample scalability and flexibility
● Easy accommodation of implementation changes, as in this
framework, when the implementation changes are made to one part
of the app, that part of the app, which is represented by the specific
script, needs to be fixed.
Disadvantages:
● While the test scripts are implemented for each module separately,
the test data is embedded into the scripts.
2. Library Architecture Testing Framework
The Library Architecture Testing Framework is based on the module-based
framework with multiple functionality and feature-rich benefits. The
application under test, in this case, is divided into scripts and segregated into
different functions that can be utilized by the other parts of the apps too.
Therefore, a common library is created that comprises common functions for
the app. These libraries can be called from the scripts as and when required.
Advantages
● Easy usability of common features by different test scripts efficiently
across the framework.
● Easy reusability

5. ● A high degree of modularization, leading to scalability and
cost-efficient maintenance
Disadvantages
● As test data is hard coded into the script, any alterations to the data
require changes to the scripts.
● Requires technical expertise to write and analyze common functions
within test scripts
● Substantial time consumption for developing the test scripts
● Increased complexity due to the introduction of libraries
3. Data-driven framework
The data-driven test automation framework primarily focuses on separating
test scripts logic and test data from each other. When any application is
tested and automated, there might be scenarios where similar functionalities
are tested multiple times with different sets of input data. In these cases, one
cannot integrate the test data into the script. The test data is required to be
retained in specific external databases that are outside the test scripts.
The test script logic and data are delineated by the user from each other,
which can be stored by the user in external databases, including ODBC
repositories, text files, CSV files, excel files, and others.
Advantages
● The test script code is not hindered by the changes in the data matrix

6. ● Maintainability and flexibility are improved
● The test data values can be easily modified by executing a single
scenario
● QA teams can save significant time by executing tests faster
Disadvantages
● Requires greater programming language for creating the test scripts
● Complex processes for reading mechanisms and test data sources
4. Keyword-driven framework
In the case of a keyword-driven framework, every function of the app needs to
be laid out in a table with an array of instructions in consecutive order for
every test that is to be run. In this framework, the keywords are stored in an
external data table, making these independent.
Advantages
● Requires minimal scripting knowledge.
● Improved reusability of code; a single keyword can be used across
multiple test scripts
● Test scripts can be developed independent of the app being tested
Disadvantages
● High cost of setting up the framework.

7. ● Complex and time-consuming as this framework requires the
keywords to be defined and the object/repositories to be set up.
● Time-consuming processes as the keywords have to be defined, and
the object repositories/libraries should be set up.
● Deployment requires good test automation skills.
● Keywords should be maintained when scaling a test operation.
5. Hybrid Testing Framework
A Hybrid Test Automation Framework is a combination of one or more test
automation frameworks that aims to garner the benefits of the other
frameworks and yield the best possible test results.
Importance of test automation amidst the
global recession
The recent economic downturn has severely impacted enterprises across the
globe with severe financial constrictions. In several scenarios, companies
have laid off employees and shut down different departments to cut down
costs; this, however, has led to inefficient utilization of existing frameworks
and also reduced investments into required technologies. As a result,
productivity rates reduce, and there prevails inefficiency in functionalities
across the organization, leading to compromised software quality and
consequent user experience.
This makes it even more essential to focus on popular test automation tools
to guarantee the continual delivery of superior app quality.

8. How does HeadSpin help empower QA
teams with data-driven test automation?
HeadSpin's data science-driven test automation Platform enables
organizations to run end-to-end automated tests on real devices across 90+
global locations and capture critical performance and functional KPIs.
HeadSpin, further, enables companies to run automated tests for capturing
different unique performance and user experience metrics like reference-free
video MOS. For instance, HeadSpin offers automation API access with
audio/video capture to help gauge the audio/video quality at scale and ensure
good user experience.
HeadSpin allows companies to seamlessly integrate with multiple automated
testing frameworks, including Appium, Selenium, and Appium Inspector.
HeadSpin is also compatible with technologies like Charles Proxy, Xcode,
Android Studio, Flutter, Cucumber, Espresso Android, Jenkins, and many more,
which help streamline existing test automation workflows.
HeadSpin's AI Testing and Dev-Ops Collaboration Platform also enables
organizations to leverage secure real device infrastructure for performing
end-to-end testing and monitoring with real devices worldwide and analyze
the actual user experience while ensuring complete security and optimal
performance.
Conclusion

9. While deploying an automated framework, it is essential for QA teams and
developers to carefully evaluate the requirements of the project and design a
suitable automation strategy. Additionally, evaluating the skill sets of the
teams and required expertise is critical in order to ensure delivering the right
framework and obtaining desired test outcomes.
Original Source:-
https://www.headspin.io/blog/pros-and-cons-of-key-test-automation-frameworks