QA Functional Testing in the Era of Codeless Testing

In Agile/DevOps, as new products emerge, new companies appear, and new features are delivered faster. Regular testing is essential, but it requires several steps, consuming much time needed for Exploratory Testing or Monkey Testing.

If you want to know more about no-code testing, please refer to this codeless testing article where we discussed a heuristic approach called “training everyone to code”. Some employees will have no desire to be trained in this new approach; others will adapt. Companies are not seeing a significant improvement in automation testing.

Instead of forcing testers to become automated testers, as many already mentioned, testing proves bugs’ existence. I would like to upgrade that definition to the following: testing helps companies deliver products according to customer requirements. So, how can we help accomplish that? We need to help testers deliver top-quality results quickly and eliminate negative factors that cause a desire to change roles.

No-code testing could help them, but we need to consider some important factors, organizations need to take a leap of faith.

What Is QA Functional Testing?

First, software testers must become familiar with codeless testing tools, understand tool features, and record and play specific testing scenarios. Codeless testing tools mostly use UI and visual elements. As this technique relies on the native identification of the web elements, testers do not have to write codes while building test cases. However, I do encourage them to learn how to read code.

Once software testers have mastered the codeless tool, the team must prioritize and select repetitive tests/scenarios. QA functional testing involves many repetitive tests such as login as X role and seeing X action available or validating X dropdown with X, Y, and Z values. The main activities here are collecting these flows and running them automatically.

Testers need to design our flows correctly, follow recording instructions, capture step-by-step actions, and keep an eye on validations. The most prominent pitfall while recording test cases is forgetting a validation (for example, the expected would be equal to the actual value). Also, remember to include multiple test scenarios to uncover more bugs.

After creating tests using our codeless tool and ensuring they are running perfectly, we can add a new title to our current role as a tester: Codeless superstar! However, as members of a team, we cannot work in isolation. Software testing involves a process of testing early, testing often, and testing everywhere. Stay connected, try to share with other teams in your organization, and ask for feedback!

Future Improvements on Codeless Tools

We already discussed the necessity of releasing faster and reducing potential failures in our final Products/Features and how no-code testing is a great approach to do so. That said, here are a few areas we think no-code testing could improve.

Reusability and Maintainability

This area is critical. if we keep adding tests, we could end up with a lot of redundancies, and maintaining those would be an impossible task. Codeless tools may add some assistance through reusable artifacts and smart selectors (auto-healing features, for example), but it is important that the tester’s design flows correctly from the start.

Debugging

Debugging becomes challenging when we accumulate design errors or mistakes in our flows. Codeless tools must provide some debugging mechanisms. Flow diagrams are excellent, and the model-based test helps a lot. Still, perhaps they can include user-friendly inspection features to quickly identify and resolve any possible failure in our codeless tests.

Training

This area could be resolved with detailed documentation. Many people enjoy having tutorials, tips, and hints readily available. Onboarding training could be beneficial, and this is important to see if the codeless tool is a success in our organizations.

Final Thoughts

Some software testers are not programmers, and the supply of automation engineers capable of the job is limited. Codeless testing tools require minimal programming skills as a starting point, and those can help testers achieve higher quality in less time.

Human intervention is still necessary. Some areas need the human touch, but we need to remove those repetitive checks and focus on uncovering bugs. At the end of the day, we need to make the testing process cost-effective. Finally, if we want to make codeless testing a reality in our organization, we need to consider that codeless testing requires a new mindset and exceptional leadership.