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Best Practices in Automation Testing of E-commerce Sites

Bhavani
March 14, 2016 |
eCommerce Store Testing

Automation testing of the E-commerce website is critical to the success of on time project quality delivery in an Agile environment. Automation testing enhances the efficiency and this, in turn, improves the quality of the application.

The Best Practices in Automation Testing in Agile Environment are:

    1. Identifying Automation Test Scenarios
    2. Selection of Test Framework
    3. Scripting / Scripting Maintenance
    4. Resources
    5. Building the Team and Training

Even though it is challenging to implement the Best Practices, the ROI of such an implementation is many times more.

Fixing Bugs - eCommerce

1. Identifying Automation Test Scenarios:

Identifying the scenarios for automation testing and best ecommerce testing tool is crucial to succeeding in automation. All the functionalities of the site cannot be automated. We have to be well balanced in segregating the manual and automation test scenarios. The QA person who is in charge of the automation testing must know the end to end functionalities of the application. The list of scenarios needs to be shared with the various stakeholders of the project before they are finalized.

2. Selection of Framework

Selection of test framework is based on the type of application. For eCommerce sites, we should use Hybrid Framework.

3. Scripting / Scripting Maintenance

Based on the identified  scenarios, scripting has to be done. We also need to define automation scripting standards (Common Language Functionality). A good automation script should satisfy the following parameters:

    • Readability
    • Reusability
    • Maintainability

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Readability:

Writing scripts is also similar to software development. The scripting should follow the basic coding standards like – placing of parentheses, comments in appropriate location etc.

Reusability:

In the automation suite, if a part of a test case is repeating, we can write a function and call back in our scripts.Example: Survey popup handling function, Host URL handling etc,

With this, we can reuse the same scripts in different environments say QA, Staging, Production by altering the value in a single file.

Maintainability

We have to keep the written scripts up to date based on the application changes. The test suites have to be given appropriate version numbers and maintained in the repository.

4. Resources

Here the resources do not mean the manpower alone but also the  test environment setup (hardware and software). Test data must be prepared with care. The quality of test data plays a vital role.

5.Build the team and Training

The team must be trained in the domain as well as the application. For example, if we are going to automate an E-commerce site, then the team should be trained in the critical business scenarios like placing orders in different scenarios etc. Team members need to be cross-trained in various tools as well as the application.

Today there is a growing dependence on E-Commerce and online shopping sites. Regular updates and frequent release cycles can be managed better by automating the testing process. Following the best practices enables us to move to the next level of testing in E-commerce.

Bhavani

Bhavani is Certified Software Test Manager and Six Sigma Green Belt. Passionate about testing eCommerce sites. Learning and implementing the latest automation tools. Mentoring.

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