subject: Keyword Driven Testing Approach In Test Automation [print this page] Testing is an important element of the software development life cycle. Manual testing still constitutes a large portion of software testing, however, it is a time consuming process. To improve productivity and coverage, test automation has been introduced. Test automation allows companies to perform repeatable tests on an application, which reduces time and also improves the test coverage.
Why to automate?
Test automation or automated software testing helps to reduce the manual efforts to test same functionalities over and over again. Testing the same functionalities in repeated manner can increase boredom and sometimes it leads to testing shortcuts resulting in inaccurate testing while doing manual testing. Test automation helps to automate these repeated tasks and to execute these tests with 100% accuracy.
Also, the automation of repeatable tests helps QA Testing engineers focus on new functionalities within an application which increases test coverage.
Automated test cases generally execute faster as compared to manual execution. It helps to run a batch of automated test cases on multiple computers at the same time.
Keyword driven testing approach
Keyword driven testing approach allows QA engineers to develop automation scripts earlier in the testing process. In this approach of testing, functional test engineers write their test cases using keywords such as select, click, enter and then the automation experts translate them into automation scripts.
In keyword driven testing, preparation of test cases is not depend on the availability of the application. There are three basic components of keyword driven testing framework: keyword, application map and component function. Keyword is an action that can be executed on a GUI component such as verify Result, verify Value. Application map is an object repository which provides named references to the GUI components. Component functions are used to manipulate or cross-examine GUI components. Keyword driven testing approach involves two steps .First step is to prepare keyword driven data table which contains objects, actions and arguments, if there are any. Each row in the table given below represents a step. Second step is to prepare automation scripts using the keywords available in the keyword driven data table.
Keywords designed can be reused across multiple test cases. This helps an automated software testing engineer re-use existing scripts for the same keywords.
Keyword driven test framework is easy to maintain and provides the greatest potential for long term success. It even shortens the software development life cycle by creating scripts earlier in the development life cycle.
A QA engineer becomes acquainted with the new testing tool very quickly, as he is required to understand the particular format which is used in the test plan and also the various desired keywords.
Disadvantages
A QA engineer has to be an expert in the scripting language used by the automation tool to prepare the test automation scripts for the particular application.
A QA Testing engineer has to learn special formats or keywords to create test cases for the particular application. This process can take more time in the beginning but when they get acquainted the test case creation time is quite less.
In conclusion keyword driven testing approach for test automation helps improve the quality of test scripts by involving skilled functional testers and automation testers. Also, it helps to prepare test automation scripts earlier in the software development life cycle which reduces the time and cost involved.
