What is Selenium: Getting started with Selenium Automation Testing
Do you know what is Selenium? Have you got any clue why it's used? If you would like the reply to those 2 questions, then wait patiently till you read the whole content of this site because you'll be glad you spent a decent amount of time getting an introduction to that which could be at the heart of your next job role.
What is Selenium testing? Selenium is an open-source application that's used for automating the tests carried out on web browsers (Web applications are tested using any internet browser).
We can neither examine any desktop (software) application nor examine any mobile application using Selenium testing. I can feel your own pain. But don't worry, there are many tools for analyzing applications and mobile applications such as IBM's RFT, HP's QPT, Appium, and a lot more. But, the focus of this blog is, testing dynamic internet applications and why Selenium is the best for that goal. Since Selenium is open-source, there's absolutely no licensing cost involved, which is a major advantage over other testing applications.
Today's world of technology is totally dominated by machines, and their behavior is controlled by the software powering it. Will the machines behave exactly as we want them to? Every time? Everywhere?
The response to these questions lies in software testing. At the conclusion of the day, it's the software program's success rate which is going to control your business development. The same thing can be stated even for internet applications because most companies these days are completely reliant on the internet. Take, for instance, any e-commerce business. Be it Amazon or E-Bay or Flipkart, they
rely on the client traffic on their web sites and traffic on their internet-based mobile applications for business.
Envision, if something devastating occurs such as the costs of a number of goods being capped off at 10$, all due to a little bug in a"not so easily readable" part of this code. Then what could be done, and how can we prevent it the next time?
By analyzing the code before installation right? So, that is the need for software testing. But, what is Selenium testing? Can it be an application testing tool? Before I proceed any farther, allow me to clear out that, Software testing is of two kinds: Manual Testing & Automation Testing. Selenium was founded as an automation testing tool to overcome the drawbacks/ limitations of Manual testing.
Thus, in the next section of this what is the selenium blog, let us know the challenges with manual testing. Challenges With Manual Testing : Manual testing means the (internet ) application is analyzed manually by QA testers. Tests need to be performed manually in every environment, with a different data set along with the success/ failure rate of each transaction that ought to be recorded.
Have a look at the above image of a poor chap, who verifies the transactions recorded. The challenges he is facing cause exhaustion, boredom, delay in labor, mistakes, and errors because of manual work. This guide to the invention of Selenium (automation testing tool). Automation testing beats manual
testing each moment. Why? Because it is faster, demands less investment in the human source, it is not prone to mistakes, frequent execution of tests is potential, supports lights outside execution, supports regression testing, and also functional testing.
Let's take a similar instance to the one mentioned previously. Suppose there's a login page and we need to verify if all the login efforts are effective, then it'll be really easy to compose a piece of code that will validate if all of the transaction/ login attempts are a success or not (automated test case execution). Furthermore, these evaluations could be configured in such a manner that they are tested in various environments and internet browsers. What else can be done?
You may automate the generation of result files, by scheduling it for a specific time throughout the day. Then you could also automate the creation of reports based on those outcomes and what not. The key point is that automation testing makes a tester's job a great deal simpler. Have a look at the picture below which shows a more relaxed environment where the same tester is working.