How to Test API Endpoints

Best Backend Automation Testing Tools 2023

Best 10 Backend Automation Testing Tools

Both DevOps and Agile frameworks focus on rapid development and delivery, and to enable this test automation becomes crucial. However, automation testing has its own challenges. Maintenance is one such challenge. If a test automation framework is not maintained correctly, automation testing starts to give False Positive and False Negative results.



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#False_Positive_VS_False_Negative_8211_Overview">1 False Positive VS False Negative &#8211; Overview</a></li><li><a href="#False_Positive_VS_False_Negative_How_to_Find">2 False Positive VS False Negative: How to Find?</a></li><li><a href="#Why_do_False_Positive_and_False_Negative_Occur">3 Why do False Positive and False Negative Occur?</a></li><li><a href="#Examples_of_False_Negative_and_False_Negative">4 Examples of False Negative and False Negative</a></li><li><a href="#False_Positive_and_False_Negative_8211_Importance_in_Testing">5 False Positive and False Negative &#8211; Importance in Testing</a></li><li><a href="#False_Positive_and_False_Negative_8211_Importance_in_test_automation">6 False Positive and False Negative &#8211; Importance in test automation</a></li><li><a href="#How_to_Choose_the_Right_Tool">7 How to Choose the Right Tool?</a></li><li><a href="#Best_Practices_for_Reducing_False_Positive_and_False_Negative">8 Best Practices for Reducing False Positive and False Negative</a></li><li><a href="#Frequently_Asked_Questions">9 Frequently Asked Questions</a><ul><li><a href="#How_to_handle_false_positive_and_negative">9.1 How to handle false positive and negative?</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
<h2 id="false-positive-vs-false-negative-overview">False Positive VS False Negative &#8211; Overview</h2>



What is False Positive in Software Testing?



A false positive is an outcome where the model wrongly predicts the positive case.



if the test case is supposed to pass however due to script issues the test result is marked as fail. If you look at the application everything might be working as expected it&#8217;s just automation script marked them fail. The false positive might occur mostly due to tools, dependencies, middleware, or sometimes invalid DOM elements.



What is a False Negative in Software Testing?



A false negative is an outcome where the model wrongly predicts the negative case.&nbsp;



In testing, if the test case is supposed to fail due to functional issues or defects however test case ignores those defects and marks the test as pass. It can occur due to improper construction of test cases, false assumptions while writing the automation scripts, etc.



<h2 id="h-false-positive-vs-false-negative-how-to-find">False Positive VS False Negative: How to Find?</h2>



Both false positives and false negatives are common in test automation. However, more than false positives, the false negatives have impact as it marks the defective application as pass.&nbsp;



If more of such issue start occurring in your application, the test automation test reports become unreliable. Thus, you should be very careful while writing the tests.&nbsp;



Let’s understand in detail how to find the false positives and false negatives.



How to Find False Negatives?



Finding a false negative is a lot more complicated than you think, as false negative results mark the test as passing inaccurately. False negatives can be caught only if you analyze them manually. You might not be able to validate a complete application manually if it is a complex application. However, you can put the strategy that whenever there are specific feature changes, you must ensure that all those test cases are validated manually and note down the expected result. The strategy needs to be improved based on its effectiveness.&nbsp;



Building a robust framework and having the right strategy are key to reducing false negatives.



How to Find the False Positives?



Unlike false negatives, finding false positives is easy. Standard practice in automation is to analyze the automation failures as and when the result/report appears.&nbsp; Before logging any issue as a defect, perform a double-check by reproducing the error manually.&nbsp;



In false positives scenarios, you can aim to go through the list of failure scenarios manually and analyze them before concluding.



<h2 id="h-why-do-false-positive-and-false-negative-occur">Why do False Positive and False Negative Occur?</h2>



Both False negatives and false positives can occur because of various reasons. However, the business impact of false negatives is more compared to false positives. As an automation team, you should always aim to have 0% false negatives. The false positive percentage can vary based on the application complexity and automation framework.



Reason for False Negatives



<ol><li>Poor Automation framework architecture</li><li>Skipping some of the conditions while designing the test case</li><li>Untrustworthy tools/packages are used for automation</li><li>Outdated packages, and libraries used in test automation</li><li>Unhandled pesticide paradox principle</li><li>Assumption of test coverage </li></ol>



Reason for False Positives



<ol><li>Automation scripts are not maintained regularly</li><li>Unstable <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/test-environment/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">testing environment</a></li><li>Standard locator strategies are not used</li><li>Outdated frameworks, libraries, and packages used</li><li>Underlying component issues such as Incompatible browsers, browser drivers, etc.</li></ol>



<h2 id="h-examples-of-false-negative-and-false-negative">Examples of False Negative and False Negative</h2>



 When you hear about false positives and false negatives you may easily get confused, Let&#8217;s put it into analogy. When we compare with the medical test case, the medical test is done for the whether patient has some medical condition or not. Similarly, when it applies to software testing we can assume as below. A positive test found a bug when there was a bug in the application. This means that there was a bug in the application and automation testing found it, it is a true and ideal scenario. Let&#8217;s take another example of COVID-19 test



False Positive



Suppose Person X doesn&#8217;t have COVID-19 and he provides the sample for testing. When the report arrived the test report was marked inaccurately COVID-19 positive though he doesn’t have an infection in his body.



When the same scenario is applied to testing, If you have a login scenario that is working as expected when you execute the automation test script it reports back Login functionality failed. In reality, there is no bug as such. This is a false positive.



False Negative



Suppose Person Y has covid infection and he provides the sample for testing. When the report arrived, report marked as “No Infections” which is COVID-19 negative. This is inaccurate, as in reality he had a COVID-19 infection.



Similarly, in software testing, you have a login scenario, which is failing to log in with a username and password. But, when you execute the automation script you get the report saying that the login test is passed. This is false negative.



If you are still confused, let&#8217;s put it in simple terms.



Automation test reporting failure without any valid failure in the application is called a false positive.



Automation test passing even if there is a valid failure in the application is called a false negative.



<h2 id="h-false-positive-and-false-negative-importance-in-testing">False Positive and False Negative &#8211; Importance in Testing</h2>



The <a href="https://www.javatpoint.com/software-engineering-software-development-life-cycle" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Software Development Life Cycle</a>(SDLC) gives the same importance to testing as development, the reason is it aims to deliver quality products. Imagine a company has launched a car with model X, and after 6 months it finds a major issue with the car engine which can be life-critical. Now the company has to recall all the cars that are sold, and the company should provide compensation to the customer, additionally, the company might have to face lawsuits. These things might not have happened if there had been a proper check in place before releasing the car. The same thing applies to software. The quality of the application resides in the quality of the testing and testing framework. If testing itself does not report actual failures, that can incur loss and reputation damage to the organization.



The false negatives are scarier than the false positives. The false negatives leave the feature broken. If you are dealing with health care, defense, or automobile software the false negatives may take a toll on someone&#8217;s life. However, if the tool you choose, and the framework you build are robust and flawless then the organization gets great benefit.&nbsp;



In short, The good or bad quality lies in the automation framework and automation scripts.&nbsp;



Though the impact of false positives is lesser, if it occurs more frequently you end up with unreliable testing. The Team might have to spend a lot of time analyzing without any gain. The good news is that false positives are easy to fix especially with modern testing tools like <a href="https://testsigma.com/signup" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Testsigma</a>. It suggests the fixes for failures, and guidance and provides technical support if you are struggling to fix the critical issue.



Both false positives and false negatives are critical in testing. However when we compare, the false positives are tolerable to some extent, but there is zero tolerance for false negatives.



<h2 id="h-false-positive-and-false-negative-importance-in-test-automation">False Positive and False Negative &#8211; Importance in test automation</h2>



False positives and false negatives are most common in <a href="https://testsigma.com/automated-web-application-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">test automation</a>, however, it is not limited to test automation. If the same occurs in manual testing it will be because of human error.&nbsp;



The automation framework design plays a critical role when dealing with false positives and negatives. As an organization makes huge investments to set up infra for automation, skills, and resources the unreliable results may disappoint the management and it may end with questioning Return on Investment(ROI). Thus, having a robust design to tackle the false positives and false negatives is a must.



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<h2 id="h-how-to-choose-the-right-tool">How to Choose the Right Tool?</h2>



As mentioned earlier, the automation framework plays a very critical role in the success of test automation. The automation framework depends on the underlying tools used. The tool should be capable enough to handle all the edge cases and should be continuously updated as technology changes.



As technology has evolved, many legacy automation tools have disappeared. One of the reasons is they could not align with modern technology change. Importantly their architecture was not flexible.



The right tool for your organization will be based on many factors such as the development framework used, cost, infrastructure, required skillsets, requirement of upskills, nature of the application, application domain, etc. The below pointers are generic and irrespective of the project domain that you need to consider while choosing the right tool.



<ul><li>Don&#8217;t be biased, evaluate all possible automation tools as per the requirement</li><li>The tool should be intelligent enough to choose the best stable locator</li><li>It should provide all critical functionalities natively, as it reduces the third-party library dependency. In turn, this reduces the false positives and false negatives</li><li>It should support the DevOps ecosystem</li><li>It should align with the modern Agile framework</li><li>The reporting should be comprehensive</li><li>Consider no code automation tools if your organization is short of skills or resources.</li></ul>



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<h2 id="h-best-practices-for-reducing-false-positive-and-false-negative">Best Practices for Reducing False Positive and False Negative</h2>



The best practices for reducing false positives and false negatives vary from project to project. To reduce them you need to prepare a concrete strategy while designing the test strategy document. Below is the list of the best practices that are independent of the project and application however, list is non-exhaustive.&nbsp;



<ul><li>Build it right, from the beginning. Choose the right tool and build a robust framework.</li><li>Integrate the alerting and monitoring tools wherever possible</li><li>Prepare a code review checklist and make it a mandatory requirement to follow</li><li>Never write a test case based on the assumption</li><li>Use the right testing tool after careful evaluation of your requirements</li><li>Use dedicated environment for testing. Ensure it is as stable as the production environment</li><li>Cover all possible testing scenarios, and use assertion as much as possible in your test scripts.</li><li>Learn from failures, and update the checklists, and strategy documents as and when required.</li></ul>



False positives and false negatives in test automation are common, however, you should always target to minimize them. Especially when it comes to false negatives you should aim for zero. False positives are unavoidable as UI testing relies on browsers and other testing components.&nbsp;



Choosing the right tool can help to reduce false positives. False positives mostly occur due to latency, locator, browser incompatibility, etc. If your test automation tool is smart enough to handle such issues the false positives can be easily reduced. <a href="https://testsigma.com/signup" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Testsigma</a> is one such tool it automatically chooses the best possible locators and your test will be executed on the most stable workspaces remotely. This helps in producing the most accurate, stable, and reliable reports.



On the other hand, false negatives occur if you don’t write the test cases as per the requirement. False negatives require manual analysis and in-depth investigation. Remember even if you have the right toolsets, good infrastructure, and a stable application environment &#8211; if you don’t write test cases properly as per requirement then test automation will become unreliable.



<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>



<h3 id="how-to-handle-false-positive-and-negative">How to handle false positive and negative?</h3>



False positives can be handled by implementing the correct design strategies while building the automation framework. If the framework is robust then there will be fewer false positives. False negatives can be reduced with code review, and test case review strategies. Additionally having the right process while developing the test cases can bring you great benefits.

False Positives and False Negatives in Software Testing

False Positive and False Negative in Software Testing

Web Services and an Application Programming Interface(API) provide web communication functionality. Though they provide similar functionalities they are not the same. Many channels sometimes use the Webservice and API interchangeably but they are different. They exist to solve different challenges. In Short, API allows the application to communicate while web service allows the system to communicate with each other. The difference between web services vs API can help to understand each of them clearly.



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#Web_Service_vs_API_Overview">1 Web Service vs API – Overview</a><ul><li><a href="#What_is_an_API">1.1 What is an API?</a></li><li><a href="#What_is_a_Web_Service">1.2 What is a Web Service?</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="#Web_Service_vs_API_Examples">2 Web Service vs API – Examples</a></li><li><a href="#Differences_Between_Web_Services_and_API">3 Differences Between Web Services and API</a></li><li><a href="#Web_Service_vs_API_Whats_Right_for_Me">4 Web Service vs API – What’s Right for Me?</a></li><li><a href="#How_to_Do_API_Test_Automation_with_Testsigma">5 How to Do API Test Automation with Testsigma?</a></li><li><a href="#Summary">6 Summary</a></li><li><a href="#Frequently_Asked_Questions">7 Frequently Asked Questions</a><ul><li><a href="#Is_web_service_and_REST_API_the_same">7.1 Is web service and REST API the same?</a></li><li><a href="#What_is_an_example_of_a_web_service_and_API">7.2 What is an example of a web service and API?</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
<h2 id="web-service-vs-api-overview">Web Service vs API – Overview</h2>



<h3 id="h-what-is-an-api">What is an API?</h3>



An application programming interface (API) is a set of rules that define how applications can communicate with each other. There are different&nbsp;<a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/different-types-of-apis-and-protocols-2022-updated/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">types of APIs</a>&nbsp;like GraphQL, REST, WebSocket APIs, RPC APIs, etc. All APIs have their own set of protocols and definitions. So each API type operates differently.&nbsp;



API is simple to implement and will have a lightweight architecture. It is often assumed that APIs are web APIs, that is information is exchanged over the internet. However, APIs can also be exposed using local files such as JAR without the internet. Web APIs are the most common and widely used.



Components of API



APIs are very lightweight, it involves three main components.



<ul><li>Client: A client can be any external or internal application that makes the request.</li><li>Server: A server executes the program and sends the response.</li><li>API contracts: Request response formats are also known as API contracts.</li></ul>



Read here &#8211; <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/api-examples/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">API Examples</a>



<h3 id="h-what-is-a-web-service">What is a Web Service?</h3>



Web service is a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine communication over the Internet. Web services are designed to provide a specific set of services. Developers can utilize multiple web services to build a single functionality which helps in code reusability and reduces the time and cost of development.



Webservices require a network to interact and network communication is generally achieved using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). SOAP uses XML format for encoding data. The XML format is used for storing and transferring information using HTTP protocol.&nbsp;



An application sends the requests to a service in XML format. Services then see and process the request and reply to the application as response using the same XML format. Web services can follow <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/api-rest-vs-soap/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SOAP or REST</a> principles for implementation. However, SOAP is the most widely used.



Types of Webservices



Web Services can be broadly classified into two different types as given below



<ul><li>SOAP Web Service: SOAP is a legacy protocol. Designed before REST.&nbsp; SOAP became popular as it provides an efficient and secure way to exchange data independent of the software platform.</li><li>REST Web Services: REST is more helpful when your application requires manipulation or exchange of media files, objects, or objects on a hardware device. The service needs to fully adhere to <a href="https://www.knowledgehut.com/blog/programming/rest-api">REST principles</a> to claim the service as a RESTful service. The HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE are used as commands for information exchange.</li></ul>





<h2 id="web-service-vs-api-examples">Web Service vs API – Examples</h2>



APIs are often used to integrate data and functionality from one software application into another.&nbsp;



For example, a weather app might use the OpenWeatherMap API to retrieve weather data, or a social media app might use the X (Twitter) API to allow users to post tweets.



Web services often provide complete user interfaces for interacting with data and functionality.&nbsp;



For example, Google Maps is a web service that provides users with a map interface for searching for locations and directions.



It is important to note that some web services also provide APIs. For example, the Google Maps web service also provides an API that developers can use to integrate Google Maps functionality into their applications.



Here are some examples we use in our day-to-day life.



Examples of APIs



<ul><li>Google Search API: This API allows you to blend Google Search functionality into their applications.</li><li>X(Twitter) API: This API allows access and interaction with X(Twitter) data.</li><li>Facebook API: This API allows access to and interact with Facebook data.</li><li>PayPal API: This API allows the integration of PayPal payment processing into their applications.</li><li>OpenWeatherMap API: This API allows you to access weather data from all over the world.</li></ul>



Examples of Web Services



<ul><li>Google Maps: This web service allows users to view and interact with maps of the world.</li><li>Amazon Web Services: This web service provides a wide range of cloud computing services, including storage, computing, and networking.</li><li>PayPal: This web service allows users to send and receive money online.</li><li>Netflix: This web service lets users stream movies and TV shows online.</li><li>Spotify: This web service allows users to stream music online.</li></ul>



<h2 id="differences-between-web-services-and-api">Differences Between Web Services and API</h2>



This is a detailed table that will give you the differences:



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Feature</td><td>Web Service</td><td>API</td></tr><tr><td>Type</td><td>A specialized type of API</td><td>A broader interface for communication</td></tr><tr><td>Network Access</td><td>Must be accessed through the network</td><td>May or may not be accessed through the network</td></tr><tr><td>Communication Protocol</td><td>REST, SOAP, XML-RPC</td><td>Various protocols (e.g., HTTP, REST, SOAP, gRPC)</td></tr><tr><td>Data Exchange Format</td><td>XML</td><td>XML, JSON, or custom formats</td></tr><tr><td>HTTP Protocol</td><td>Supports HTTP</td><td>Supports HTTP and HTTPS with headers</td></tr><tr><td>Communication</td><td>Allows machines to communicate</td><td>Allows applications to communicate</td></tr><tr><td>Implementation Approach</td><td>Complicated and legacy</td><td>Simple and modern</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>Document exchange, synchronous/asynchronous operations, RPC, loose coupling, modular design.</td><td>Simple, flexible, secure, language-independent.</td></tr><tr><td>Advantages</td><td>Easy to use, high code reusability, communication and data exchange, speed, agile compatibility, flexibility, security, platform independence.</td><td>Improved connectivity, CRUD operations, HTTP verb support, data exposure, GUI integration, customization, authentication/authorization, multiple formats.</td></tr><tr><td>Disadvantages</td><td>Cannot be accessed directly from browser, requires skilled resources, limited to legacy technologies, security depends on implementation, unreliable HTTP protocol.</td><td>Requires programming expertise, high maintenance cost, fixed scale, infrastructure cost for scalability.</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



<h2 id="web-service-vs-api-what-s-right-for-me">Web Service vs API – What’s Right for Me?</h2>



Web services are typically accessed through a web browser and often provide a complete user interface for data interaction. Web services are often used to build web applications and mobile apps. Know more &#8211; <a href="https://testsigma.com/automated-web-application-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Automated Web application Testing</a>



APIs are accessed through code, providing a programmatic interface for data interaction. APIs are often used to integrate data with other software applications.



Here is a table that recaps web service vs API key differences:



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Feature</td><td>Web service</td><td>API</td></tr><tr><td>Access method</td><td>Web browser or client application</td><td>Code</td></tr><tr><td>User interface</td><td>Yes</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><td>Use cases</td><td>Building web applications, mobile apps, and other user interfaces</td><td>Integrating data with other software applications</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



Which one is right for you?



A web service is an excellent option to access and use data through a user interface. An API is a good option if you need to access and use data through code.



Here are some specific scenarios where you might choose a web service or API:



<ul><li>Web service:&nbsp;</li></ul>



<ol><li>You are building a web application that needs to display data from a remote server.</li></ol>



<ul><li>API:&nbsp;</li></ul>



<ol><li>You are building a mobile app that needs to access data from a remote server.</li><li>&nbsp;You are building a software application that needs to integrate with a third-party service.</li></ol>



Both web services and APIs are helpful tools for accessing and using data. The best choice for you will depend on your specific needs. Consulting with a software engineer or IT professional is always a good idea if you are still deciding which one to choose.



<h2 id="how-to-do-api-test-automation-with-testsigma">How to Do API Test Automation with Testsigma?</h2>



As many organizations are following API-driven development, it is important to test the API. API testing is not as easy as we think. <a href="https://testsigma.com/guides/api-testing/">API testing</a> requires some level of technical expertise as you need to pass the request body, headers, authorization token, etc. Testsigma makes its simpler using the No Code method. Know more &#8211; <a href="https://testsigma.com/automated-api-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">API Test Automation</a>



Steps to Create API Tests in Test Sigma



Step 1: Log in to TestSigma



Step 2: Click Create Test Case&nbsp; and Enter the required Details



Step 3: Add RESTFUL API&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfk3MrcFg5ABJYeAXycVqiol54UWufIoelQEia7TFW47tGm4C9LSPtTP29o_CMZJkaYB0b1bFttZNiKi1qPr-1GCKodwXSw8KlaPrxl2f8zJ1ZCpKZr7KQTo2m2fRqOGtG4bUQFJ4yykU3fXgvlz5KMxkg?key=znRVNszpf0pvJfN-k6tqPA" alt="restful api testsigma"/></figure>



Step 4: In the REST API window, enter the required details and Click on Create



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf3RmQvGnE2jnjeB30wIvQjQUXSvmYIoB6x0Xq1SwhArISJrpbnb_RCwVBjhrDCt1pFECzj4YBm-zuxAUQcXZ1Oh9sV8FtwtZUE22BzQ5FVRZOf5MBTkIb6MPzoHrf995RkKQsM-6zgHYPtSzYQ1c96Vq9X?key=znRVNszpf0pvJfN-k6tqPA" alt="rest api demo"/></figure>



If you are using any tool other than Testsigma, you need to construct the whole request details using the programming languages which includes headers, URL, request body, etc. However in <a href="https://testsigma.com/guides/api-testing/">TestSigma</a> its just a few clicks.









What to Test in API Testing?



API Testing is most critical as it is the middle layer. APIs usually communicate with UI and Database. You can test a lot more in API testing. However, at the minimum, you need to test below key areas.



<ul><li>Response Code</li><li>Response Payload</li><li>Response headers</li><li>API Contracts</li></ul>



Remember, While doing API testing you need to focus on both happy flows, sad/error flows, and edge case scenarios.



It is recommended to perform API testing as much as possible. Compared to UI tests API test are more stable and takes less time to execute. The data and major chunk of application functionality can be tested using <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/api-testing-basics/">API testing</a>. The web service and APIs are not the same, they exist to solve different problems. The modern web application architecture emphasizes API-driven development. So web APIs are most commonly used across the industry. API also simplifies complex application development and helps in code re-usability and security. API can be implemented in different ways based on needs and other organization-related factors. As the development is aligning with web API the need for API testing is more. Most organizations follow API testing as integration testing as major data-related functionality can be tested within a few minutes. Most of the automation tools support API testing however, setting up an API testing framework takes more time. Importantly, the requirement for skilled resources is a major challenge. Tools like Testsigma make API testing easier and faster. It also comes with DevOps (CI/CD) integration thus it makes developer/tester friendly.



<h2 id="summary">Summary</h2>



In conclusion, web services are a specialized subset of APIs that adhere to specific standards, while APIs offer a more flexible and versatile approach to application integration. Though all web services are APIs, not all APIs are web services: APIs can use any number of protocols and be local or remote.



<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>



<h3 id="is-web-service-and-rest-api-the-same">Is web service and REST API the same?</h3>



Though many of us use the web service and API interchangeably it is not the same. Webservice is the legacy approach used for exchanging data between systems or applications. The REST API is used to interact between two applications.



<h3 id="what-is-an-example-of-a-web-service-and-api">What is an example of a web service and API?</h3>



A payment gateway is an example of a web service. You might have seen login with Google/Facebook etc. while you sign up when you choose Internally it uses the respective organization APIs for authentication.

Web Service vs API – What are they & How do they Differ

Web Service vs API – What are they & How do they Differ?

Testing is one of the key areas in the Software Development Life Cycle(SDLC). As the DevOps and Agile approach has become popular in modern software development, test automation is becoming the way to test.&nbsp;



One of the major challenges in test automation is test failure analysis. As the failure might have originated from the application or test script itself. Without traces and sufficient logs, it becomes difficult to analyze the test failure.



&nbsp;In this article let&#8217;s discuss analyzing the failures in depth and detail.



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#What_Is_Test_Failure_Analysis">1 What Is Test Failure Analysis?</a></li><li><a href="#The_Importance_of_Test_Failure_Analysis">2 The Importance of Test Failure Analysis</a></li><li><a href="#Two_types_of_test_failures">3 Two types of test failures.</a></li><li><a href="#Critical_Features_of_Test_Failure_Analysis">4 Critical Features of Test Failure Analysis</a></li><li><a href="#Test_failures_in_test_automation">5 Test failures in test automation</a></li><li><a href="#How_Testsigma_Helps_in_test_failure_analysis">6 How Testsigma Helps in test failure analysis</a></li><li><a href="#Test_Automation_Tools_with_Test_Failure_Analysis">7 Test Automation Tools with Test Failure Analysis</a><ul><li><a href="#Testsigma">7.1 Testsigma</a></li><li><a href="#Selenium_IDE">7.2 Selenium IDE</a></li><li><a href="#Katalon">7.3 Katalon</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="#Frequently_Asked_Questions">8 Frequently Asked Questions</a><ul><li><a href="#What_is_an_example_of_a_failing_test_case">8.1 What is an example of a failing test case?</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
<h2 id="h-what-is-test-failure-analysis">What Is Test Failure Analysis?</h2>



Test failure analysis is a process to find the root cause of a failed test. Failure analysis helps the team to analyze and fix the failing tests. If failure originated from the application, team needs to raise the defect to the development board to fix the application issues.



<h2 id="h-the-importance-of-test-failure-analysis">The Importance of Test Failure Analysis</h2>



Test automation helps to speed up the development and delivery process by providing fast feedback. A greater benefit comes if challenges are handled well. One of most challenging task in is maintenance.&nbsp;



<h2 id="h-two-types-of-test-failures">Two types of test failures.</h2>



<ol><li>False failures: The application is stable and working as expected however test automation script is failing due to scripting issues such as milliseconds of delay, hiccups in test automation simulation, etc.</li><li>Expected failures: The application functionality is broken, test automation script is trying to perform an end-user task however due to an application issue it is failing. This is also known as valid failures. Valid failures are considered a defect. Application failure usually occur due to changes in flow, and changes in the DOM tree or It may be also due to some of the functionalities being broken.</li></ol>



Let&#8217;s understand important areas of test failure analysis.



<ul><li>Test failure analysis helps to understand false failures and valid failures</li><li>It helps to understand the performance bottlenecks which are causing the delay in execution.</li><li>You can isolate the slow-running tests to get immediate feedback.</li><li>It helps to tune the core automation framework to streamline the needs.</li><li>It helps to configure the parallel execution based on the script execution time.</li></ul>



Just like how the developer does the debugging, test automation scripts need to be debugged in the same way. However, to debug you need to know where to start and a high level of failure information. Especially if you are using a continuous testing (CI/CD) pipeline you may end up with a large amount of unrelated logs. So only test result logs, screenshots, and good reporting can help you in this scenario.



<h2 id="h-critical-features-of-test-failure-analysis">Critical Features of Test Failure Analysis</h2>



As discussed before there is a lot of information required to analyze and fix the test failures. Below are some of the important Features of test failure analysis.



<ul><li>Understand the failure area: If the <a href="https://testsigma.com/reports" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">test reports</a> are properly configured it should provide the nearest area where the test case is failing.</li><li>Root cause analysis: Once you identify where the test is failing, you need to drill down to why the test failed. In the root cause analysis, you will be identifying the reason for failures.</li><li>Filtering failures: As we discussed before, test cases can fail due to various reasons in the test script or they may be valid failures. Both failures have to be investigated and need to take appropriate action once the analysis has been completed.</li><li>Actionable insights: Step-by-step approach to drill the reason and fix them accordingly</li><li>Test Artifacts: Test artifacts may provide the logs, videos, network information, screenshots, and optionally may also provide the infra details. All these things help to fix the failures.</li><li>Intelligent Dashboards: The perfect dashboard should have a single point of view for all of your test results.&nbsp; If it is smart it can also provide information related to unstable tests along with supporting information.</li><li>Enterprise automation tool and reports: Not everyone is interested in everything. For example, the tester might be interested in concrete-level information. The stakeholder might be interested in how the application is performing today. So the enterprise dashboard should provide a different view as per the need.</li></ul>



<h2 id="h-test-failures-in-test-automation">Test failures in test automation</h2>



Many think that test automation is &#8220;Write once and run forever&#8221;. But none of the test automation tools works in that way. If you need reliable test automation results you need to maintain them. You need to fix the failures as and when required and remove the performance bottlenecks.



Test failures are most common in test automation. So before adopting the best-fit automation tool, you need to evaluate it as per the need. Most of the time while evaluating the automation tool reporting feature is not taken into consideration, but this is the most critical feature when it comes to maintenance and failure analysis.



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Most of the tools provide HTML, JSON, XML, etc. types of reports. Remember, more than the reporting structure, the information which the report provides matters. If the report provides accurate and sufficient information for failure analysis, maintenance will be easier.



Let&#8217;s take an example of the below scenario



Test Case Name: Search and Navigate to the Testsigma page.



<ul><li>Navigate to google.com</li><li>Search for testsigma</li><li>Click on the first result which is having a link to the Testsigma page.</li></ul>



Once you execute the script, imagine the script is failing while giving the information &#8220;Search and Navigate to testsigma page has failed&#8221;. If you look at the failure result, there is not much information, as the test case has many steps. If the tool provides minimal information debugging tests will be difficult. If the test automation tool is intelligent it should fail the test case with accurate information such as



<ul><li>Where has it failed?</li><li>Why has it failed?</li><li>Suggestions to fix the failures</li></ul>



Tools like Testsigma also provide screenshots and videos that help to understand the failures. Makes it easier to analyze and fix them within a few minutes. Another advantage would be even non-technical people will be able to understand and suggest the fix.



<h2 id="h-how-testsigma-helps-in-test-failure-analysis">How Testsigma Helps in test failure analysis</h2>



The time taken to fix the script depends on how accurate the test results are and its information. If the test fails with one line of failure message, the tester needs to spend a lot of time analyzing the root cause. The sooner you find the root cause, the faster you fix the failures.&nbsp;



Testsigma understands the pain of finding the root cause. So it has tried to make failure analysis very simple by providing the most accurate, detailed information along with supporting screenshots, videos, and logs.



Let&#8217;s understand what are the features of <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/test-summary-report/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Testsigma reporting</a>.



<ul><li>It provides reports at different levels such as Testplan, Testsuite, Testcase, and Step level.</li><li>Testcase level report contains the most granular level of information such as exact steps where it failed and the reason for failure.</li><li>The test report also provides different environmental information that you have selected before execution. Such as Windows 11 with Chrome, MacOS with Safari, etc.</li><li>It provides step-level screenshots where failures have occurred</li></ul>



<ul><li>Optionally, you can also download the log files which provide network and connection information thus it helps for further analysis.</li><li>The filtering option helps to filter out test results in multiple ways</li><li>As mentioned before, not everyone is interested in all the reports so it provides high-level reports with charts which will be helpful to stakeholders.</li><li>You can export the test results in PDF, or JSON format and build your dashboard.</li><li>When integrated into CI/CD pipeline it provides reports for each build making continuous testing easier.</li></ul>



Let’s take an example of a scenario and try to analyze it in detail.



Consider we have a scenario



Test Case Name: Search and Navigate to the Testsigma page.



<ul><li>Navigate to google.com</li><li>Search for testsigma</li><li>Click on the first result which is having a link to the Testsigma page.</li></ul>



After execution we are seeing the failures in the above script, Testsigma reports look like below



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/ZTI3OYAVc9E0DMJhL1EK2m-BZF7I7B7bMmPze9xHB9MNurahy1WJ02ymSVcSN3q30YyH2A0OITgkl1X9p1gzV3HYKgm2iAFNvGSd58Z_ZMeuwrlz11__7k6m78SDNPw7p5d1czEEG9mupathBBILog" alt="Search and navigate"/></figure></div>



Looking at the screenshot, Let&#8217;s find the root cause by analyzing the report



<ul><li>From the top environment information, we understand that it has failed in Windows 11 with Chrome version 114</li><li>There are 6 steps in total, and the test failed in the 5th step</li><li>From the error message &#8220;The element corresponding to the locator type &#8220;XPATH&#8221; and locator &#8220;//span[contains(text(),&#8217;Testsigma1&#8242;)]&#8221; is not found&#8221;. It clearly says that the locator is not found when it tries to click.</li><li>When we look at step 5 we are performing the click action on the XPATH locator &#8220;//span[contains(text(),&#8217;Testsigma1&#8242;)]&#8221; however it does not exist on the page.</li><li>If you navigate to the suggested <a href="https://support.testsigma.com/support/solutions/articles/32000024739-most-common-issues-caused-when-using-ui-identifiers">documentation</a> page it clearly says how to fix the issue.</li><li>From the screenshot, it is clear that the failure is not related to page loading or delay or application under test (AUT). It seems like an issue with our automation script.</li><li>From the above investigation, we can derive the conclusion<ul><li>Application behaving as expected</li><li>Page is rendering is fine</li><li>There is no such issue related to performance</li><li>The issue is originating from the locator that we have used.</li></ul></li><li>You have now two solutions to fix it<ul><li>Record the script</li><li>Correct the locator which is causing the issue</li></ul></li><li>In the locator we are using XPATH &#8220;//span[contains(text(),&#8217;Testsigma1&#8242;)]&#8221; where we are looking for the text &#8220;Testsigma1&#8221; but the actual locator is &#8220;//span[contains(text(),&#8217;Testsigma&#8217;)]&#8221;. 1 was appended at the end which was now corrected.</li><li>To edit the locator Click on TestSteps and then Click on Edit</li></ul> 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/UFA7lgvaoMan8kKrdb6Ai4j1KDSTqmaD54OJAzqNME6_CgflPOLS3e13PeRr0okZmvK4cVWJbMOhVCWC_YPoKBUosF_BJlc5L1CRj_WtHz3m7a-81XAnxQssB08-A0e5IKtv7op9mZ1pA0Xu0JqfpA" alt="test steps"/></figure></div>



 <ul><li>Click on the locator and replace it with the correct locator. Optionally you can Record the Element to correct it.</li></ul> 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/b-v6PuwwLKatWlFZqch01w2muwYj1IFpQ9-vIJc9ZO2cesnpjCRY2EunnoT-J1E9kJBC6MXy6puN2e0hwtMIvXPyzn2JHiSD3LU97ff8l-5IiRcpN4Bj13weHGnPnHVVMZQs2RG9H2pxoFhWGJVfWw" alt="Record element"/></figure></div>



 <ul><li>Click on Update and Rerun the test</li><li>After fixing the locator you can see the Test is passing</li></ul> 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Q743B_WhIkffZ0WqfbIqr25tRJYXoy-tL82j7EPCvc6280ukaU-Yq2ZZQg9nIiQtQAVs49dhRRaBiQZauDvL-OI0BgyrlziPZ6uiNHpuV_hsvec6HOip4b9uNSDCrXxA0C-2HFOfRAvLe1_RJqTgw" alt="test result"/></figure></div>



I have explained it in detail so it might look lengthy when you look at it but in the real world, these steps won&#8217;t even take 5 minutes. One of the reasons is we could able to find all relevant failure information in place. Importantly, we are suggested with documents to fix them, no need to search for a solution. In this way, any complex failure is simplified by Testsigma, which makes it a developer-friendly tool.



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<h2 id="h-test-automation-tools-with-test-failure-analysis">Test Automation Tools with Test Failure Analysis</h2>



Almost every tool is shipped with test reporting but the accuracy is what matters most here. Some example<a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/test-reporting-tools/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> test reporting tools</a> for failure analysis are.



<h3 id="h-testsigma"><a href="https://testsigma.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Testsigma</a></h3>



A no-code automation tool provides an &#8220;anybody can automate&#8221; feature. This tool comes with the most granular reporting with screenshots, videos, logs, exact steps, reason for failure, and help documents for fixing them.



<h3 id="h-selenium-ide">Selenium IDE</h3>



Selenium IDE is open source record and playback tool. The tool also provides reporting however for non-technical people it may be difficult to understand them. As the error messages are more technical and there is no high-level report to share. If you need detailed reporting you need to manually configure it using one of the supported programming languages



<h3 id="h-katalon">Katalon</h3>



Katalon provides both record-playback options and code-based automation capability. However, unlike Testsigma it is not a SaaS tool, so the configuration of reports in a Continuous testing environment can be tricky. If you need to use the Katalon you need to download the Katalon studio locally and then configure it as per your need.&nbsp;



Test failure analysis in automation can be challenging and time-consuming if you don’t have accurate information. Codeless automation tools like Testsigma provide detailed documents and accurate information whenever a test fails.&nbsp;



While you hunt for the test automation never forgot to have reporting as one of the criteria for evaluation.&nbsp;



Continuous testing demands speedy delivery, for that the automation script should execute without any performance hiccups. The artifacts should contain detailed reports and logs which can help you to debug and fix them swiftly.



<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>



<h3 id="what-is-an-example-of-a-failing-test-case">What is an example of a failing test case?</h3>



Let&#8217;s take an example of the below scenario



Test Case Name: Search and Navigate to the Testsigma page.



Steps:



<ul><li>Navigate to google.com</li><li>Search for testsigma</li><li>Click on the first result which is having a link to the Testsigma page.</li></ul>



Once you execute the script, imagine the script is failing while giving the information &#8220;Search and Navigate to testsigma page has failed&#8221;.



The failed test case could be mean that either searching for this page did not work or navigating to this page did not work. It would be on further analysis of the test results that we could get to know the isolated cause. Read more here about <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/failed-testing/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Failed Testing</a>.

Test Failure Analysis In Test Automation

Software Quality is a term used to measure the degree of excellence of software. Software Quality attributes are extremely important while designing a software application.&nbsp;



There is a misconception that if the software application is bug-free then the quality of the software is high. However, a bug-free product is just one of the Software Quality Attributes. The quality of the software also depends on the user requirements, satisfaction, clearer design, usability, etc.



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#List_of_Software_Quality_Attributes">1 List of Software Quality Attributes</a><ul><li><a href="#Reliability">1.1 Reliability</a></li><li><a href="#Maintainability">1.2 Maintainability</a></li><li><a href="#Usability">1.3 Usability</a></li><li><a href="#Portability">1.4 Portability</a></li><li><a href="#Correctness">1.5 Correctness</a></li><li><a href="#Efficiency">1.6 Efficiency</a></li><li><a href="#Security">1.7 Security</a></li><li><a href="#Testability">1.8 Testability</a></li><li><a href="#Flexibility">1.9 Flexibility</a></li><li><a href="#Scalability">1.10 Scalability</a></li><li><a href="#Compatibility">1.11 Compatibility</a></li><li><a href="#Supportability">1.12 Supportability</a></li><li><a href="#Reusability">1.13 Reusability</a></li><li><a href="#Interoperability">1.14 Interoperability</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="#Importance_of_Software_Quality_Attributes">2 Importance of Software Quality Attributes</a></li><li><a href="#How_can_Test_Automation_Help_in_Improving_Software_Quality_Attributes">3 How can Test Automation Help in Improving Software Quality Attributes?</a></li></ul></div>
<h2 id="h-list-of-software-quality-attributes">List of Software Quality Attributes</h2>



Software Quality attributes help to measure the quality of the software from different angles. <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/software-quality-management/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Software Quality</a> Attributes can be broadly classified into 5 types: Design, Runtime, System, User, and Non-runtime qualities. However, when we go into detail there are at least 14 different attributes. Let&#8217;s discuss this in detail.



<h3 id="h-reliability">Reliability</h3>



Reliability is the ability of software applications to behave as expected and function under the maximum possible load. 



Reliability is made up of different types



<ul><li>Availability: The percentage of time the application is available for use. 100% availability refers to the system being always available and never going down under any circumstances.</li><li>Recoverability: Recoverability refers to the ability to recover the system quickly and efficiently.&nbsp;</li><li>Fault Tolerance: This attribute refers to the extent to which the system can tolerate hardware failures.&nbsp;</li></ul>



Let&#8217;s take an example of an e-commerce website. The website went down as one of the server nodes crashed. In an ideal situation, if the reliability attribute is implemented then the system should automatically failover to the other server node.



<h3 id="h-maintainability">Maintainability</h3>



Maintainability refers to how easily software developers can add new features and update existing features with new technologies. The application architecture plays a critical role in maintainability. The well-architected software makes maintenance easier and more cost-effective.



Consider the scenario where the law enforces new privacy laws. If your software is running on legacy code, adhering to new laws might be challenging. If the software is well-architected and the code is well documented, implementing such changes would be an easy task.



<h3 id="h-usability">Usability</h3>



The Usability attributes refer to the end user&#8217;s ease of use. Usability is tied to application performance, application UX design, and accessibility. To understand usability better let&#8217;s consider an e-commerce page &#8211; user has purchased an item and wants to return the item. Good usability makes the return option available on the orders page. In some cases, the return option may appear on to contact us page &#8211; in this situation user easily gets confused and faces difficulty to find the return option.



The usability design principles can help to design a good customer experience. The meaningful option texts, tooltips, and info icons are a great way to encourage self-learning.



<h3 id="h-portability">Portability </h3>



The portability quality attribute refers to how easily the system can be ported or migrated to other environments containing different hardware or operating system specifications. The portability problem is majorly faced in mobile native applications.



An example of a portability issue &#8211; you have designed a web application that works perfectly fine on Android devices but when it is ported to iPhone devices (iOS), it fails to render. If your application is abstracted from UI and business logic, fixing such issues becomes easy.&nbsp;



<h3 id="h-correctness">Correctness</h3>



Correctness refers to the ability to behave or function as per software requirement specifications. This may include navigations, calculations, form submissions, etc.



Consider an example of sign-up. Your application should navigate to the terms and conditions page after signing up as per the requirement specification. However, it is landing on the home page without showing the terms and conditions page. Strict <a href="https://www.evoketechnologies.com/blog/code-review-checklist-perform-effective-code-reviews/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">code reviews checklist</a> and Unit testing can help to discover such bugs.



<h3 id="h-efficiency">Efficiency</h3>



Efficiency can be defined as the time taken by the system to complete a specific task. In layman&#8217;s terms, it can be the performance of the application. Performance is the most critical software quality attribute as it can make the user system to a hung state. The utilization of system resources should be taken care with the most efficient way, and any memory leaks should be avoided to achieve high efficiency.



For example, if you open one of the video editor applications on your desktop, as soon as you open your system freezes, and all the other open application start to behave in an unintended way. This is a bad application design and shows the poor efficiency of the software.



<h3 id="h-security">Security</h3>



Security attribute focuses on the ability to safeguard applications, data, and information from unauthorized entities. This is very crucial as the data leaks may incur huge losses in terms of organization&#8217;s brand name and reputation. Furthermore, the organization may face a lawsuit. 



Authentication, authorization, and data encryption are a few key areas that can safeguard from malicious attacks. Add on to this, if your application is B2C, educating customers also plays an important role.



An example of a security attribute is, you have developed an API endpoint that is exposed to the public however, there is no authorization required to access this endpoint. This can make API and the underlying system, less secure. To make the API secure you can consider enabling a JWT security token as mandatory, which can be created only by authorized users.



<h3 id="h-testability">Testability</h3>



Testability is how easily QA members can test the software and log a defect and how easy it is to automate the software applications. Your application design should focus on making the testing easier and faster.&nbsp;



Consider an example, you have designed a web application that doesn&#8217;t contain any uniquely identifiable locators. This makes automation more complicated. Adding ids, data-testid, and class helps to cover more scenarios through automation.



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Nowadays <a href="https://testsigma.com/automated-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">automation testing</a> is most recommended as it makes the delivery faster. If your application is automation friendly then one can easily automate the application using automation software like Testsigma and identify the defects in the early stage.



<h3 id="h-flexibility">Flexibility </h3>



Technology changes are more common nowadays. Flexibility refers to how quickly your application can adapt to future and current technology demands. Indirectly the flexibility attribute is tied up with your competency in the market. If your application is not up to date with the latest technology then you might not be able to deliver all the user needs.



For example, You are using a third-party library for styling your application. Due to some reasons, the third-party library declares the end of development. Now the question arises of how quickly your application can switch to another library. If it takes longer, then it might cost your business.



Never develop applications with tight coupling of libraries you have reference to, rather design applications in a generic manner and hook the libraries.



<h3 id="h-scalability">Scalability</h3>



Scalability is how easily your system can handle increasing demands without affecting the application&#8217;s performance. Vertical Scalability and Horizontal Scalability are two primary areas that help to meet the scalability criteria.



For example, an e-commerce website declares a Black Friday sale. On sale day, the application sees huge traffic. If your application is designed according to the scalability attribute, as soon as the traffic increases, the system should automatically add the server nodes and distribute the traffic. Failing to do that may result in your application going down.



<h3 id="h-compatibility">Compatibility </h3>



Compatibility focuses on the ability to work software systems on different operating systems, and browsers seamlessly as expected without affecting any functionality.



A most common problem with the web application where it works on Chrome but it doesn’t on Firefox. This is because of compatibility issues. When it comes to business, you can&#8217;t restrict users to use a specific browser. However, such issues can be tested using the most popular tools like Testsigma. Testsigma provides 3000+ real devices and multiple browsers to execute your automated tests for compatibility testing. Using such <a href="https://testsigma.com/qa-automation-tools" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">automation tools</a> helps to discover compatibility issues at an early stage.



<h3 id="h-supportability">Supportability</h3>



It is the degree to which a software system can provide useful information for identifying and resolving the issues when application/functionality stops working. Enabling logging, monitoring, and health checks are most useful to adapt supportability.



For Example, Your application has a profile information page, which works perfectly fine for some users and only a few users are facing issues with the profile page. In this case, it is difficult to reproduce in a lower-level environment. The logs come in handy to identify the call stack and reference APIs which is causing the issue.



<h3 id="h-reusability">Reusability</h3>



It is the degree to which software components can be reused in another application or the same application. Reusable software components reduce the development cost and effort. This is one of the reasons most companies are encouraging component-based development.&nbsp;



For example, your organization is developing two different applications where both the application needs sign-in and sign-up forms. If you don’t have a reusable components strategy then you need to develop the same thing two times. On the other hand, if you have identified common components and designed those as reusable and shareable components it would be much easier to integrate sign-in and sign-up screens into both the application. The reusable component can also decrease maintenance costs.



<h3 id="h-interoperability">Interoperability</h3>



Interoperability refers to the ability to communicate or exchange data between different systems. Which can be operating systems, databases, or protocols. The interoperability problem arises due to the legacy code base, poorly architectured application, and poor code quality.



For example, Your application needs to communicate with the payment gateway but you are facing challenges to integrate with the payment gateway due to various standards mismatch. If you had taken all the security, data, and standard API design approach this wouldn&#8217;t have happened.



<h2 id="h-importance-of-software-quality-attributes">Importance of Software Quality Attributes</h2>



Software quality attribute determines software system usefulness and success. Often the software quality attributes safeguard you from reputation damage. Software quality attributes should be introduced at the early stage of the software development life cycle (SDLC). While architecting your application you should consider the quality attribute. If all the software quality attributes are taken care then your application can sustain in the market for a long time.



Adapting software quality attributes is not a one-time task, rather it is continuous and it can evolve. The management should enforce adapting software quality attributes to achieve high standards. Keep in mind that adapting quality attributes at a later stage might be challenging and it can be pricier. As many software quality attribute focus on core-level architecture, it should be introduced at an early stage.



<h2 id="h-how-can-test-automation-help-in-improving-software-quality-attributes">How can Test Automation Help in Improving Software Quality Attributes?</h2>



The software automation tool can help in ensuring the various quality attributes. For example, when we talk about scalability, a performance testing tool such as JMeter can help you to ensure scalability before going to production. Similarly, the Testsigma test automation tool can help you to ensure Correctness, Compatibility, and Usability. Compatibility testing is the most challenging as it requires a huge investment in infrastructure. Read here &#8211; <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/automation-scalability/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Automation Scalability</a>



Fortunately, Testsigma made it easier. It provides 3000+ real devices including desktop and mobile platforms and provides many different browsers to test on. Using Testsigma without any additional effort you can run your compatibility across browsers and platforms using the same automation scripts. Testsigma is <a href="https://testsigma.com/codeless-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">codeless automation tool</a> that lets you write scripts in plain English. In turn, it helps to adapt the Quality attributes with less effort and cost.



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Doesn&#8217;t matter if your application is large or small, simple or complex you need to consider software quality attributes. Software quality attributes not only focus on technological aspects but it also important to run and sustain in the market. So quality attributes play a key role in both technology and business. Nowadays it&#8217;s not even an option rather it’s a need.



What are the characteristics of software quality? 
The characteristics of software quality usually include:
<ul>
<li>reliability</li>
<li>maintainaibility</li>
<li>usability</li>
<li>portability</li>
<li>correctness</li>
<li>efficiency</li>
<li>security</li>
<li>testability</li>
<li>flexibility</li>
<li>scalability</li>
<li>compatibility</li>
<li>supportability</li>
<li>reusability</li>
<li>interoperability</li></ul>

What are the Software Quality Attributes?

SaaS Testing Top Challenges, Tools and Testing Approach

SaaS Testing: Top Challenges, Tools and Testing Approach

Xpath Vs CSS Selector : Key Differences

The browser renders web pages as HTML documents, HTML documents contain a series of HTML elements such as &lt;body&gt; &lt;div&gt; &lt;title&gt; &lt;p&gt; etc. <a href="https://testsigma.com/automated-web-application-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Automation Testing of web application</a>s requires components of the webpages to be identified uniquely to perform any action on that. Locators or Selectors are used to identify the web elements uniquely on the webpage. The Locators are a series of elements chained with the selector-specific syntaxes. However, every automation tool provides its own method to find element by XPath.Selectors can be broadly classified into,



<ul><li>CSS selectors</li><li>XPath</li></ul>



The XPath selector is the most commonly used selector and is supported by all major browsers and test automation tools.



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#What_is_XPath">1 What is XPath?</a></li><li><a href="#How_to_Find_Element_by_XPath_in_Chrome">2 How to Find Element by XPath in Chrome</a></li><li><a href="#FindElement_by_XPath_in_Selenium">3 FindElement by XPath in Selenium</a></li><li><a href="#FindElement_by_XPath_Detailed_Guide">4 FindElement by XPath Detailed Guide</a></li><li><a href="#Find_Elements_in_Selenium">5 Find Elements in Selenium</a><ul><li><a href="#Find_Elements_in_Selenium_Code_Example">5.1 Find Elements in Selenium Code Example</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="#Using_FindElements_by_XPath_in_Selenium">6 Using FindElement(s) by XPath in Selenium.</a><ul><li><ul><li><a href="#Create_a_web_driver_object">6.0.1 Create a web driver object</a></li><li><a href="#Navigate_to_webpage">6.0.2 Navigate to webpage</a></li><li><a href="#Log_the_text_value_of_the_element">6.0.3 Log the text value of the element</a></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><a href="#Frequently_Asked_Questions">7 Frequently Asked Questions</a><ul><li><a href="#What_is_XPath-2">7.1 What is XPath?</a></li><li><a href="#What_is_Absolute_XPath">7.2 What is Absolute XPath?</a></li><li><a href="#What_is_Relative_XPath">7.3 What is Relative XPath?</a></li><li><a href="#Which_locator_strategy_is_most_recommended">7.4 Which locator strategy is most recommended?</a></li><li><a href="#How_to_find_the_XPath_Value">7.5 How to find the XPath Value?</a></li><li><a href="#How_to_find_the_XPath_by_Text">7.6 How to find the XPath by Text?</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
<h2 id="h-what-is-xpath">What is XPath?</h2>



XPath stands for XML Path Language. It is an XML Path notation used for navigation throughout the HTML document of the page. It uses the XML-based syntax to find the HTML element on the webpage. XPath is also known as a query language. The XPath works for any complicated application. General Syntax for XPath is as follows.



<styled-code>
//tagname[@attribute=&#8217;value&#8217;]
</styled-code>



For example, you can construct XPath,



<styled-code>
//div[@id=&#8217;myid&#8217;]
</styled-code>



<ul><li>//: Selects the current node.</li><li>Tag name: Name of the tag.</li><li>@: Select the attribute.</li><li>Attribute Name: Name of the attribute.</li><li>Value: Value of the attribute.</li></ul>



<h2 id="h-how-to-find-element-by-xpath-in-chrome">How to Find Element by XPath in Chrome</h2>



The XPath is supported by most modern browsers. Browsers like Chrome allow us to write the XPath in the developer tools and check the correctness. If your XPath is correct, then chrome highlights the specific web element in UI.



Let&#8217;s discuss how to write the XPath in Chrome Browser,Let&#8217;s take the above-mentioned scenario of finding the XPath for &lt;ul&gt; that contains the list of product menu.



1. Navigate to the Webpage.



You can Navigate to any webpage you wish, for simplicity let&#8217;s navigate to https://testsigma.com/. 2. Right Click on the desired element in our case its footer element and Click on Inspect. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter is-resized"><img loading="lazy" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_36412/image_5997ce681e67d6d68124ccc91593895d_2000.png" alt="inspect" width="800" height="400"/></figure></div>



Ensure the Chrome DevTools opens with the Elements tab Activated.3. Use the Ctrl+F key to bring the Search Input into the dev tools4. Construct the XPath using the XPath rules.XPath follows certain syntaxes mentioned above; it may start with / or //, and you need to follow XPath syntax.



Now, you need to find the list of the footer links using XPath. You have a ul tag associated with li, which can be constructed as shown below.



//footer[@class=&#8217;footer sec_padding&#8217;]//div[@class=&#8217;footer_items&#8217;]/ul/li 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter is-resized"><img loading="lazy" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_36412/image_e40eb4e5e17a32733f0a3bd5670a5ed3_2000.png" alt="find element by xpath" width="900" height="400"/></figure></div>



For example, as you can see in the above screenshot. First &lt;li&gt; is highlighted and in the search box you can see there are 18 matches. There are 18 different links in the list.



You need to follow the same steps for other browsers also. As mentioned before, most of the modern browser supports XPath. You can also use Edge, Firefox, Chromium, or any similar browsers.



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<h2 id="h-findelement-by-xpath-in-selenium">FindElement by XPath in Selenium</h2>



The FindElement and FindElements are two different methods that help to find the element in the webpage, by using the locator strategies.



FindElement in Selenium: The FindElement method returns the WebElement object which contains the <a href="https://www.freedomscientific.com/SurfsUp/Elements.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">element of the webpage</a>. It returns the Single element so it is more suitable when you are acting on a single web element. When you execute the FindElement() logic on the browser, it searches for the matches based on the locator Strategy. Returns you the first locator that matches.



FindElements in Selenium: Unlike the FindElement method, the FindElements method returns multiple elements as a list (List&lt;WebElement&gt;) so it is more appropriate when you want to perform the operation on a series of web elements.



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Find Element</td><td>FindElements</td></tr><tr><td>Returns the Single Element of Type WebElement</td><td>Returns the multiple web element of type List&lt;WebElement&gt;</td></tr><tr><td>Returns First most web element if there are multiple matches</td><td>Returns the list of web elements</td></tr><tr><td>Cannot iterate over multiple elements</td><td>Helps to iterate over multiple elements and perform an action on them</td></tr><tr><td>If there is no Element NoSuchElementException is thrown</td><td>Returns the empty list if no matching element is found</td></tr><tr><td>Since there is only one element cannot access the element by index</td><td>If there are multiple elements we can access the element by using index. The index starts from 0, 0th index returns the first web element</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



<h2 id="h-findelement-by-xpath-detailed-guide">FindElement by XPath Detailed Guide</h2>



The below example shows the usage of findElement using Java.



WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.LocatorStrategy(&#8220;SelectorValue&#8221;));



<ul><li>driver: the driver is an instance of Selenium Webdriver</li><li>findElement: The Find Element method requires Locator Strategy as the parameter.</li></ul>



<h2 id="h-find-elements-in-selenium">Find Elements in Selenium</h2>



As the name indicates, the findElements returns multiple web elements as a List. This method fetches multiple elements at once and performs iterative operations on them.



<h3 id="h-find-elements-in-selenium-code-example">Find Elements in Selenium Code Example</h3>



Syntax:



List&lt;WebElement&gt; elementList = driver.findElements(By.LocatorStrategy(&#8220;Selector&#8221;));



<ul><li>Driver: The driver is an instance of the Selenium Webdriver.</li><li>FindElements: A method in selenium, requires the LocatorStrategy as parameters.</li><li>Returns the List containing the Web elements.</li></ul>



Example:



Let’s consider we have a list of footer links, and we wanted to fetch all the links at once and get the text. Then we can construct find elements by XPath like below,



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://images.storychief.com/account_36412/image_f625f2a41d65e975591828b44197007e_2000.png" alt="footer links"/></figure>



List&lt;WebElement&gt; links = driver.findElements(By.XPath(&#8220;//footer[@class=&#8217;footer sec_padding&#8217;]//div[@class=&#8217;footer_items&#8217;]/ul/li &#8220;));



<h2 id="h-using-findelement-s-by-xpath-in-selenium">Using FindElement(s) by XPath in Selenium.</h2>



As mentioned above selenium provides the FindElement(s) method to fetch the locator from the webpage. You can use this method with the driver by passing the Locator strategy as a parameter.



Let&#8217;s understand it with a simple scenario.



<ol><li>Navigate to Testsigma.</li><li>Find the footers in the footer section.</li><li>Log the Text of the footers.</li></ol>



To write the above scenarios in Selenium we need to follow different steps. Let&#8217;s take a look one by one.



<h4 id="h-create-a-web-driver-object">Create a web driver object</h4>



WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver()



<h4 id="h-navigate-to-webpage">Navigate to webpage</h4>



driver.get(&#8220;https://testsigma.com/ &#8220;);



Find the footer Element which is having the list of items.



As discussed in the Chrome XPath section, the ul and li holds the list of product menu items.



Let’s construct XPath for the same,



XPath: //footer[@class=&#8217;footer sec_padding&#8217;]//div[@class=&#8217;footer_items&#8217;]/ul/li



Once you have the XPath, pass this XPath as a locator strategy for the Find Element by XPath method. Example:



List&lt;WebElement&gt; elements =driver.findElements(By.XPath(&#8220;//footer[@class=&#8217;footer sec_padding&#8217;]//div[@class=&#8217;footer_items&#8217;]/ul/li &#8220;));



<h4 id="h-log-the-text-value-of-the-element">Log the text value of the element</h4>



To log the text value of the element, you need to iterate over each element and log it.



Putting everything together, below is a code example to find element by XPath.



import java.util.List; import org.junit.Test; import org.openqa.selenium.By; import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver; import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement; import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver; public class SeleniumXPath { @Test public void seleniumDemoTest() { WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(); driver.get(&#8220;https://www.testsigma.com&#8221;); driver.switchTo().frame(&#8220;iframeResult&#8221;); List elements = driver.findElements(By.XPath(&#8220;//footer[@class=&#8217;footer sec_padding&#8217;]//div[@class=&#8217;footer_items&#8217;]/ul/li &#8220;)); for (WebElement element : elements) { System.out.println(element.getText()); } } }



The above example illustrates the Selenium Find Element by XPath. Similarly, you can use the Selenium findElement by ID.



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<h2 id="h-frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>



<h3 id="h-what-is-xpath-1">What is XPath?</h3>



XPath is XSLT standard element. It can be used to navigate elements in XML or HTML DOM contents.



<h3 id="h-what-is-absolute-xpath">What is Absolute XPath?</h3>



Absolute XPath is the least used XPath type; it starts from the root of the HTML DOM tree. Absolute XPath Starts with a single slash (/).



<h3 id="h-what-is-relative-xpath">What is Relative XPath?</h3>



Relative XPath is the most used XPath type; it starts with a double slash (//).



<h3 id="h-which-locator-strategy-is-most-recommended">Which locator strategy is most recommended?</h3>



There are different types of locator strategies available in Selenium, such as ID, class, name, Link text, and XPath. However, various experts suggest using the XPath when there are no other locators available to use. One of the reasons is &#8211; typically, XPath is associated with more than one HTML elements, so any new functionality can break the existing XPath.



<h3 id="h-how-to-find-the-xpath-value">How to find the XPath Value?</h3>



Any modern browser’s developer tools can help to find the XPath value; there are third-party plugins that can help you to find the XPath easily. However, the browser dev tools can help you in most of the scenarios.



<h3 id="h-how-to-find-the-xpath-by-text">How to find the XPath by Text?</h3>



The XPath can also be constructed to find text in the DOM element. In such cases, you need to use the text() functions in the XPath.Example://ul/li[text()=&#8217;banana&#8217;].



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Find Element by XPath: A Complete Guide

The Software Testing is key aspect of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Outcome of the product quality depends on how thoroughly software is tested. There are different types of testing techniques. Exploratory testing is one such popular technique where the professional testers perform the testing without any preparation. Tester explores the given functionality and aims to find as many bugs as possible. 



Testers may get distracted during the exploratory testing, as he may work on multiple tasks parallelly such as raising defects, discussions, asking for clarifications or any other non-testing related activities. To overcome the challenges of exploratory testing and utilize the complete power of exploratory testing there is a technique called Session Based Testing (SBT).



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#What_is_Session_Based_Testing">1 What is Session Based Testing?</a></li><li><a href="#Components_of_Session_Based_Testing">2 Components of Session Based Testing</a></li><li><a href="#Why_Session_Based_Testing_Management_SBTM_is_important">3 Why Session Based Testing Management (SBTM) is important?</a><ul><li><a href="#Advantages_of_Exploratory_Testing">3.1 Advantages of Exploratory Testing</a></li><li><a href="#Disadvantages_of_Exploratory_Testing">3.2 Disadvantages of Exploratory Testing</a></li><li><a href="#Advantages_of_Session-Based_Testing">3.3 Advantages of Session-Based Testing</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="#Session-Based_Testing_in_Agile_Methodology">4 Session-Based Testing in Agile Methodology</a></li><li><a href="#Session_Based_Testing_and_Automation">5 Session Based Testing and Automation</a></li><li><a href="#Advantage_of_using_Automation_in_Session_Based_Testing">6 Advantage of using Automation in Session Based Testing</a></li><li><a href="#Summary">7 Summary</a></li><li><a href="#Session-Based_Testing_Frequently_Asked_Questions">8 Session-Based Testing Frequently Asked Questions</a><ul><li><ul><li><a href="#What_are_the_benefits_of_SBT">8.0.1 What are the benefits of SBT?</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="#Is_session-based_testing_an_agile_methodology">8.1 Is session-based testing an agile methodology?</a></li><li><a href="#Does_session-based_testing_require_automation">8.2 Does session-based testing require automation?</a></li><li><a href="#What_is_an_exploratory_testing_session">8.3 What is an exploratory testing session?</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
<h2 id="h-what-is-session-based-testing">What is Session Based Testing?</h2>



Session Based Testing can be defined as a structured and time-based testing technique to carry out exploratory testing. In this methodology, uninterrupted testing is carried out for a specific time-period. In the end, the outcome of the testing is evaluated.



<h2 id="h-components-of-session-based-testing">Components of Session Based Testing</h2>



The session-based exploratory testing involves multiple elements as it follows specific approach. Below is the list:



<ul><li>Mission: Define the purpose.</li><li>Charter: Define the goal for session.</li><li>Session: Uninterrupted time for actual testing.</li><li>Session Report: Session report contains bugs and other information.</li><li>Debrief: Quick session with manager.</li><li>Parsing Results: High-level aggregated reports.</li></ul>



Each and every component mentioned above plays a critical role in the session testing. Let&#8217;s understand each component in detail.



Mission



It defines the purpose behind session based Testing. This includes the duration of the session. Duration can be typically 45 minutes to 2 hours. The mission helps to focus on the key areas while still allowing the exploration of the system.



Charter



The charter is the goal for the specific test session. The testing team creates the charters. However, while preparing the charter, the testing team can take the help of the product and development teams. You can derive the charters from the specifications or the previous sessions. But you should be aware that charters are flexible and can be updated at any time. Charters should not be too generic and should not be too specific. For example,



<ul><li>Verify the Testsigma website &#8211; This is too general.</li><li>Validate the Testsigma homepage for the menu dropdown to work correctly &#8211; This is too specific.</li><li>Focus on the Testsigma webpage functionalities that are listed on the homepage &#8211; Good.</li></ul>



Session



The session is your uninterrupted and focused time for testing. You should focus the session on charter but not limit to charter. You can explore new opportunities or bugs during the session. As you progress, note down the ideas and bugs. You can also note down the scenarios that are worth exploring in the next sessions.



Session report



Once the session is over, you will have a lot of scenarios, bugs, and a lot of valuable information. The session report contains the summary of the session. Some of the key pointers of session reports are charter, the strategy used, area tested, list of bugs, list of open questions/clarifications, opportunities discovered, duration, etc.



Debrief



It is a quick discussion between the tester and the manager. The debriefing follows the PROOF concept.



<ul><li>Past(P): List of activities you have completed during the session.</li><li>Results: What you have achieved in the session.</li><li>Obstacles(O): List of problems that you have faced.</li><li>Outlooks(O): Your feedback or plans for the next session.</li><li>Feelings(F): Your opinion and review; this can also include improvisation points.</li></ul>



Parsing Results



Managers can create a common standardized report. The report consolidates or aggregates all the session reports. The report includes a list of bugs, sessions per feature, time spent on each area, new opportunities, etc.



<h2 id="h-why-session-based-testing-management-sbtm-is-important">Why Session Based Testing Management (SBTM) is important?</h2>



Let’s understand how you can get benefit from Session Based Test Management (SBTM). SBT is an extended version of exploratory testing. To know the importance of SBTM you need to know the pros and cons of the<a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/exploratory-testing/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> exploratory testing</a>.



<h3 id="h-advantages-of-exploratory-testing">Advantages of Exploratory Testing</h3>



<ul><li>Less Preparation Time: It is more result-oriented rather than process oriented. You don’t have to pre-plan your testing activity. You can start the testing immediately and start reporting bugs.</li><li>No barriers: You are not limited to any functionality or scripts and are free to explore. This helps in recording the critical bugs early.</li><li>Increased knowledge: As you are given with tasks to report as many bugs as possible, it increases your product knowledge. As you keep on exploring and testing, you get the answers to a lot of questions.</li><li>Anyone can contribute: Though testers are primary for these sessions, any person from the product team, development team, or anyone who has knowledge of the product can contribute to the exploratory testing.</li></ul>



<h3 id="h-disadvantages-of-exploratory-testing">Disadvantages of Exploratory Testing</h3>



<ul><li>Requires experienced resources with out-of-the-box thinking: One of the major drawbacks of exploratory testing is, there are no test plans and no testcases. Only person who knows about product can bring the good result. The testers creativity plays major role in testing.</li><li>No traces and tracks on amount of completion: You cannot say confidently that, you have completed X percentage of testing. As you are not focused on specific plans. You might have many undiscovered bugs even after testing.</li><li>Difficult to reproduce issues: You should have high level of attention to detail while performing the exploratory testing. You should know what you are doing otherwise it is difficult to reproduce the steps, when you discover the bugs.</li><li>Interruptions: Testers easily get distracted with messaging tools, emails, discussion with product team, asking clarifications. Though you spend 2 hours on exploratory testing, the focused hours may be 30 mins to 1 hour.</li></ul>



You can easily think that exploratory testing is good and required for every product, and it saves from delivering critical bugs to production. At the same time, you need to overcome the difficulties in the exploratory testing. Session Based Testing had emerged as a powerful testing technique for the same reason. It overcomes the disadvantages of exploratory testing, and it adds power to exploratory testing.



<h3 id="h-advantages-of-session-based-testing">Advantages of Session-Based Testing</h3>



<ul><li>Structured: You will not be given test plans during the session testing, but you will have structures and focus areas. The session is organized from beginning to end with a structured approach.</li><li>Focused Testing: You don’t get any distractions in session-based testing. SBT testing uses a focused and distraction-free session. The SBT includes a major component as a session which is distraction-free time to achieve your goal.</li><li>Uncover Edge case scenarios: SBT takes advantage of exploratory testing; it provides the flexibility to explore new features and uncover bugs.</li><li>Easy to Track: You will get the focused area to test, so it is easy to remember what you have tried. This also helps in recording steps. Some tools also provide you to add short notes/comments, which can be helpful during final report creation.</li><li>Everything is tracked: You can track everything, such as focused features, duration, and explored areas, and your overall experience throughout the session is tracked in a document. The aggregated report helps the management to analyze and come up with new plans.</li></ul>



<h2 id="h-session-based-testing-in-agile-methodology">Session-Based Testing in Agile Methodology</h2>



Agile methodology is a modern software development framework. Most organizations are now transitioning to agile framework. Agile framework provides the flexibility to customize and incorporate new things by using standard guidelines. The session-based testing technique can be easily integrated into the agile framework. The Session based testing allows you to have a charter, which can be small or large. You can define the charter which can fit into your agile model for each session. It also provides the flexibility to have as many sessions as you need. Below is one such example that shows how SBT can be integrated into Agile:



<ul><li>Gather the list of features that are a part of the sprint.</li><li>Analyze the critical areas which have a high business impact.</li><li>Prepare the focused areas for SBTM.</li><li>Plan the Session-based testing when the features are ready to be tested.</li><li>Track everything and repeat the above steps in each sprint.</li></ul>



This way, you get the highest benefit of the exploratory testing and increased productivity. Furthermore, it also helps in discovering a lot of major bugs and improves confidence for release to production.



<h2 id="h-session-based-testing-and-automation">Session Based Testing and Automation</h2>



As mentioned earlier, Session Based Testing is advanced version of exploratory testing. Exploratory testing doesn&#8217;t contain any scripts, test cases. However, session-based testing focuses on best practices. Now, you might be thinking that automation is not helpful in session-based testing. However, session-based testing can still utilize the power of automation. You can use the automation in SBT to speed up the preparation of input data. For example, if you have all the automation script ready and you have the session time defined, just before a ,few hours to start the session, you can start the automation script; this can save lot of your efforts that is required to create the input data.



Testsigma, a no-code test automation, is built with superior test management features to aid your data-driven test automation. Read more about it here: <a href="https://testsigma.com/automated-data-driven-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://testsigma.com/automated-data-driven-testing</a> 



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 <h2 id="h-advantage-of-using-automation-in-session-based-testing">Advantage of using Automation in Session Based Testing</h2>



<ul><li>Saves Time and effort: Automation can save a lot of repeated works to prepare the input data.</li><li>Reduces the last-minute surprises: While creating an automation script you might have gone through the data creation process. Any issues or hiccups that you faced during the data creation process are already resolved (or else automation scripts will fail). Since you have completed the automation scripts, the data creation process is smooth. Whereas in the manual approach, when you do it for the first time, then you may encounter a lot of issues, and resolving these issues may impact the SBT.</li></ul>



As we discussed in the previous section, exploratory testing requires professional testers to yield greater results. Similarly, the automation script also requires expertise in programming languages. However, this is true only if you stick to code-based automation tools such as Selenium, Cypress etc. There are lot of codeless automation tools which can save your time &#8211; Testsigma is one such tool. Anyone who knows about testing can just start the automation without worrying about coding. The Artificial Intelligence mechanism in Testsigma can also help you to reduce the maintenance of your automation scripts.



<h2 id="h-summary">Summary</h2>



Session-based testing is derived from exploratory testing. SBT makes exploratory testing more effective and structured. SBT involves elements &#8211; mission, charter, session, debriefing, session reporting, and parsing results. The components are designed to help both testers and management. SBT can be easily integrated into the agile framework to get the most out of it. Having automation scripts for data creation makes SBT more powerful and productive.



<h2 id="h-session-based-testing-frequently-asked-questions">Session-Based Testing Frequently Asked Questions</h2>



<h4 id="h-what-are-the-benefits-of-sbt">What are the benefits of SBT?</h4>



Session based testing uses the benefits of exploratory testing. It overcomes the cons of exploratory testing, which makes Session testing more powerful. Also, it reduces any distractions for testers and increases productivity.



<h3 id="h-is-session-based-testing-an-agile-methodology">Is session-based testing an agile methodology?</h3>



Session-based testing is a structured approach. Though it is not part of agile methodology using the agile framework flexibility, you can easily integrate session-based testing into the agile methodology.



<h3 id="h-does-session-based-testing-require-automation">Does session-based testing require automation?</h3>



It is not mandatory to use automation in session-based testing, but you can always automate the important use cases found during the sessions.



<h3 id="h-what-is-an-exploratory-testing-session">What is an exploratory testing session?</h3>



Session-based testing is referred to as exploratory testing sessions or session testing.

Session Based Testing Technique In Software Testing

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