The world today runs on software. Music, movies, and TV shows are delivered online, where online stores exist for buying everything you might want: from physical products to services. All this software comes with the heavy cost of creating a reliable, robust, and scalable user experience in order to make your users happy. And thus, to ensure that users are having the best experience in it, End-to-End testing is the best practice for it. e2e testing is the perfect approach that brings together many different software tests and allows the execution of these tests jointly.
In e2e testing, we aim to execute automated functional tests and load/performance tests while imagining the behavior and expectations of real users. To reach this goal, we will have to run many tools and components at once, and monitor different aspects of performance during our tests like server load, memory usage, or the number of concurrent users on our system. By focusing on functionality, e2e testing ensures that your product is delivering the complete client experience, whether it’s for mobile or desktop devices.
Introduction to e2e Testing
e2e testing provides a clear picture of how the application is being used by users. This allows teams to identify and prioritize areas for improvement based on actual user behavior. Central to the idea of e2e testing is the understanding that user journeys are unique, so any changes made to the workflow should be validated against real users and their experiences.
- End-to-end testing is a process that checks that a system or application is working in the way it was intended by its developers. This is done by simulating a real user experience and can cover everything from performance requirements to complex logic using tools like Selenium, Ranorex, and WebDriver.
- While there has been an overall shift to agile methodologies, testing in an agile development cycle is still needed and works best when combined with continuous integration.
- The end-to-end testing process is the most effective way of testing software. This is because it mimics how a real user navigates through a system or application. End-to-end testing can cover anything from user performance requirements to complex logic, depending on the type of software being developed.
As there has been an overall shift to agile methodologies, e2e testing in an agile development cycle is still needed and works best when combined with continuous integration. It involves simulating user interactions, either manually or through automation, to verify that the system or application is functioning correctly.
LambdaTest offers free continuous test orchestration while letting you deploy quality builds faster with 3000+ real browsers, devices, and OSes on the cloud. The LambdaTest platform is trusted by over 1 million developers in 130+ countries, and seamlessly integrates you’re your complete CI/CD tech stack. It offers real-time live testing and automated testing of websites and mobile applications with frameworks like Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Puppeteer, TestCafe, and more.
Best Practices for End-to-End Testing
The term ‘End to End testing’ is really just a way of describing testing across a spectrum of different interaction paths. e2e testing can uncover bugs that may otherwise have gone unnoticed until after release and ensure that quality stays in check throughout the development process which in return ensures a high level of consumer satisfaction. Some of the best practices that are involved in end-to-end testing have been listed below and the testers can adopt these practices to test the codes easily and to produce better results for the users.
To Control Risk-Based Testing
Risk-based testing is a software testing technique that applies the concepts of risk and risk mitigation. It’s mainly used to decide what tests are required in the context of software system testing, but it can also be applied independently of it, say in requirement engineering or design verification activities. Introducing Risk-based testing to your software development lifecycle can significantly improve the test cases you write. It provides a smarter, more cost-effective, and more time-efficient approach to bug hunting. With its help, you can prioritize your bug-hunting efforts and allocate resources more rationally. It helps to figure out which part will be affected and which one will remain intact.
Testing with Quality Test Data
Many organizations rely heavily on their database testing strategies. After all, databases are used to store the information that makes an application functional and effective. Yet these same organizations often merely copy production data back into the database for testing. In other words, they copy production data back into the database for testing. And thus, it is essential to make sure that the testing data is of top quality and isn’t copied so that the e2e gives accurate results to it. End-to-end testing is all about making sure the end user takes paths through your product that should lead to success.
Opt for Codeless Test Automation
Test automation is a great way to increase an application’s quality. But it can be challenging to find enough time and resources for creating the scripts for automated tests. The many reasons why codeless testing is important are pretty clear. And in many organizations, it is reported that they go for codeless test automation with e2e testing. It allows testers and other professionals to create test cases that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to create. It’s an undeniable fact that automated testing is expensive and time-consuming. Code-based tests need skilled programmers with the right tools at their disposal to create them.
Testing in the Correct Order is Crucial
The main practice involved in e2e testing is on the basis of when to perform it and in which order. e2e testing is all about hitting the right step at the right time. For this, the concept of shift testing comes into play. Rather than pushing testing to the end of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and performing it only with manual test scripts, you bring test automation earlier in the SDLC. This approach helps you perform earlier diagnosis of issues as they arise – when they are cheaper to fix – thus shifting your overall testing strategy left. By avoiding approaches where software testing is only carried out at the end of the SDLC, you can obtain feedback sooner, and thus it is easier to diagnose and fix defects when such solutions are cheaper than later in the SDLC.
Fair to Keep the User’s Experience as a Priority
The conventional wisdom in the software industry is that testers should put themselves in the shoes of the final user. It’s good advice, but it’s easier said than done. To test from a user-centered perspective, you need to develop strong empathy for your target audience. After all, regardless of what type of product or service you’re developing, it will be of little use if no one finds it valuable or usable. The tricky part is figuring out what exactly the user needs and hence the testers have to work well for it. If you get it right and understand what a User wants to do and how he or she uses software for this purpose, you gain an edge over your competition.
Page Elements Should be Selected Accordingly
A clear and unambiguous naming convention for elements, including class or ID attributes, will help you avoid brittle tests. Appropriate naming conventions ask that elements have meaningful names and are sufficiently descriptive to ensure an accurate identification within automated e2e testing tools. e2e Testing offers a smart locator feature that helps identify element attributes on the page and their order for each of the selected elements. This is especially useful when selecting elements with dynamic IDs or names, as the test steps can be changed dynamically by merely updating the test case name accordingly. Furthermore, Selecting the Page Elements helps the users to understand exactly which thing will be loaded first and hence makes the task easy for the testers too.
Tracking the Progress of Automation with the Expected Results
In order to build a product that maximizes ROI, test automation is an essential part of the software engineering process. Test automation adds an extra layer of protection to the quality of the app, ensuring that it stays error-free and within budget in a fast and efficient way. Furthermore, be sure to set metrics for expected outcomes in the entire e2e Testing process. This will allow you to understand where your SaaS testing efforts are effective and where you have not yet achieved the expected results. At the next stage of the project, adjust your testing strategy to achieve maximum efficiency. Furthermore, e2e Testing is enough to describe how to come up with the best results possible.
Tests Should be Maintained Regularly
The easiest way to run tests after e2e automation has been done is if someone else does this for you. The automated build system makes it possible for the deployment process to be completely automated and therefore transparent, allowing you to focus on what is most important — making your product even better. Furthermore, in this mode, it is better to get the tests done regularly as it will allow the tester to understand where they are lagging and what else is required to make the user’s experience perfect. Apart from it, regular testing with the help of e2e saves time as if it is done at the end, then major issues can come up, and hence it will make the task tough for the testers.
Keep Your Test Environment According to the Needs
End-to-end testing is a process used to evaluate a site or application. It mimics the behavior of real users by simulating the actions they perform while using the site or application. The system is tested in real-time against the expected outcomes of input and processing. The environment under which you run your tests is just as important as the tests themselves. e2e testing requires a testing environment that closely mimics the production environment, making e2e a challenging test methodology to implement. Without simulating the production environment, you may introduce changes into your code and deploy only to find that bugs have made it into live production code, or worse, you have introduced bugs. If you cannot run tests that cover every possible form of user input, and if you cannot guarantee total compatibility with the production environment, you cannot have confidence that your software meets all of its functional requirements.
Test Logic Should be Clear
Automated tests are an essential part of today’s software development process. They can help to ensure that your software continues to function as it should, while also helping you to evaluate new features and important modifications. Thus, creating reliable e2e tests begins with object orientation. This allows you to separate the code of your test from the element definitions, or in Selenium terms, the locators. Using a strategy pattern such as Page Object makes it even easier to separate your test from your UI elements. Then all changes to the application, regardless of type, will be handled by a single-page object. This means that you won’t need to modify any of your automated e2e tests if the elements of your UI change, and this will result in high reliability for all your automated tests.
Wrapping Up
e2e testing is commonly regarded as the accepted practice for ensuring a quality user experience across all devices, operating systems, and browsers. e2e tests act as living documentation of what your product should do. They are generally run by QA teams on a daily basis, giving them a unique perspective on how your product works both internally and externally. End-to-end tests are at the heart of quality assurance in modern web application development.
By automatically running these tests in continuous integration, problems are identified faster, improving software quality and saving money in the process. This allows them to provide valuable insight into areas that need improvement or those that individual users will appreciate. With organizations continually looking for ways to implement more innovative and effective solutions, e2e testing is not only benefitting the organizations themselves, but it is also improving the user experience.
