Coding has always been a developer’s niche. When developers created something in the early 21st century, testers would take it and analyze it manually. If they found a bug, they reported back, and the process improved the quality of the software. Such an impact on the software made the job of the tester permanent. The primary expectation from the tester was not learning how to develop the software, but analytical skills and observational powers. How deeply can a tester analyze the software and find issues that could have easily seeped into production?
With the advancement in development and web technologies, the tester’s job has a lot more nuance. With each releasing version, it takes longer to test. Hence, automation testing (that required coding skills) started gaining steam among teams.
This takes us back to the idea of where testing began. If all you need is to rip apart software and take out the deepest of hidden bugs, do we really need to know a particular programming language for that? Such a thought has given birth to the concept of no code testing. Bringing back the initial requirements but for complex and more extensive systems. Combining this with the open-source nature of software, we get the perfect combination. This post will talk about no-code technologies, open-source software, and a tool that fuses both to provide a powerful platform for the testers.
What’s No Code?
No code testing also called codeless or scriptless testing is when you don’t need any programming languages or code to perform automation testing. The introduction of record and replay in Selenium popularized and promoted the codeless testing method. But today, in 2022, Selenium IDE is not enough. Record and replay often restrict you when UI changes a little; thus, tests often break.
No code testing uses UI to create tests through methods that are personal to the platform. It means that every platform tries to break current trends by providing some new way of using no code. Some will provide drag and drop mechanisms, while some have automatic AI-based element finders for UI automation testing. It depends on the platform and your choice of method.
No code platform provides the following benefits to the tester:
- Eliminate language learning: While it is good in IT to learn programming languages, people who do not want to should not suffer. No code automation testing brings down language barriers for the testers.
- Focus on problem: Since the language part and converting a tester’s action to code (such as in drag-and-drop) is taken care of by the platform, the tester can focus on problem-solving and provide better tests.
- Easy to learn: One additional effect of eliminating the language part is that the platform becomes extremely easy and friendly to use.
- Feasible: No code platforms are almost always on the cloud, so they reduce the costs of on-premise resources. In addition to it, we also save on the salary of automation engineers as a manual tester can also perform no code automation testing without any programming knowledge.
- Quick releases: A no code solution in testing means rapid test development and faster feedback to the developers. Hence, the software release cycles are shorter, which is one of the main goals of any organization.
All these benefits have truly hit the home run with the testers. A survey report has established the tester’s optimism (in percentage) over no code tools in the future, especially in the software domain.
If you have been into no-code testing (or even development), let us know your tools and experience in using one in the comment section.
What’s open source?
The next part of this post is about open-source automation testing tools. Open source has been making a lot of noise lately in the software domain. The common notion is that software should be made by anyone who wishes to make it. It should be open to all and made for everyone. Open source represents a collaborative environment where people make changes to a software project, irrespective of their geographical location or educational qualification. If you know how to code, you are welcome and encouraged to contribute your problem-solving chops.
Open source test automation tools are made purely for testing purposes. Millions of people use some of the most famous open source automation testing tools like Selenium and Appium, which demonstrates the power of open source automation. Today it is a billion-dollar market, and big teams are moving towards open source tool Testsigma to reap its benefits and deliver to their customers. If you are interested in contributing to open source and do not know where to start, we have a dedicated guide on why & how to contribute to open source projects to help you.
Open source tools bring out the following benefits:
- Use what you want: Open source tools’ main principle is to provide software to everyone and give them the right to change the tool as per their requirements. So an organization’s requirement is similar to the ABC tool, but with a few changes, the developers can just fork and start working on their changes on the same code. This gives you flexibility and the power to choose from many options.
- A better software: Open source automation tools are made by developers worldwide. They are people who genuinely wish to make good software, and a part of this process is “criticism.” Writing a piece of code means showing everyone what you wrote, how you wrote it, its present consequence, and future consequence on the software. For example, if your code doesn’t follow guidelines, it will be criticized. Criticism leads to improvement and better quality software.
- Security benefits: Open source tools are open to everyone, and hence a lot of people can find loopholes and security defects in the software. They then raise them in the “issues” section, and ultimately, developers improve it. Using an open source software would mean using a tool that has been reviewed for security by hundreds (or thousands) of great developers and accepted for usage.
- Features as per demand: Open source tools are for the community, and the community decides what needs to be incorporated. A big part of this is getting features in the highest demand. If UI id selector is in demand by the community, they don’t need to take this up to an organization which will then review it and see if it fits their business goals, etc. The community can just create another feature branch and start development on it.
- Lower Costs: A 2008 survey report by the Standish Group states that they saved $60 billion per year for consumers by adopting open source. Apart from saving from the salaries of full-time engineers, open source software reduces costs from licensing the software and renewals, etc.
Altogether, open source automation testing tools and no code gives you an experience that does not hurt your pockets and lets you focus on testing.
Introducing Testsigma – A fusion of no code and open source
Harnessing the power of no code requires a tool with an easy-to-go UI for the newbies and the strength to work with highly complex code for testing. The tools should have a low learning curve and create no hindrance for either a new tester or an experienced one.
No code tools are both open source and closed source (proprietary software) and are generally hosted over the cloud (and sometimes connected with a secure agent). One such tool is Testsigma which has completed more than 1.5 million tests on its platform and hosts customers as big as HP and Freshworks.
Testsigma is open source which has helped them connect with like-minded automation testers and developers all across the globe. Their official repository is hosted on GitHub. The platform provides various testing methods, including data-driven testing, API testing, and mobile application testing. For the demonstration in this post, we will consider a web application, although the steps can be mimicked in other types of testing easily. Before proceeding ahead, it is recommended to sign up for free on the platform so you can get a feel for it.
To start the no code automation testing with Testsigma, you need to deploy it on the local system or use the cloud. However, it is recommended to choose the cloud-based option as it does not require any system resources.
To create tests, you have two options. Either perform actions on the application that are converted to code by Testsigma. Or write the English language-based scripts on your own.
For example, the following is a sample of writing test cases for automation testing in Testsigma:
Yes, Testsigma uses English-based scripting (which is quite unique) as part of the no-code system. The platform then uses natural language processing to understand the intent and convert the English scripts to code behind the scene. In the above screenshot, Navigate to http://URL would translate to driver. get(URL) when done in Selenium. But here, it is extremely easy to do, edit, and understand because of the human language used.
If you choose to perform actions and convert them to English based scripts, you will get the following arrangement:
When a tester taps on an element in the application running in the right panel, the action is converted to “Tap on WP_Login_Button” as shown in the left panel. WP_Login_Button is just a reference of an element.
You can also use a test recorder to record your steps and run them on any number of real devices provided by Testsigma.
Once you are done, choose the specification of the system on which you wish to run the tests.
Lastly, verify your test cases using detailed reports provided by the tool.
So, did you use even a single line of code to reach the end of testing? This is what no code solutions are all about. You focus on the problem rather than wasting time on setting up configurations and resolving compatibility issues.
Conclusion
No code testing solutions are expected to be a substantial part of the testing as well as the development market in the coming decade. Working on the issues and letting the computer handle heavy things has proved to be a successful strategy for various organizations working in this field. It is a win-win situation for the organizations, testers, and users. Organizations save a lot of costs, testers don’t need to spend time learning a programming language, and users get updates frequently.
Mix this with open source, and we get a no code solution that is high in quality and is reviewed and developed by the best people around the globe. In this post, we made a small attempt to aware the audience of this mix of software that is taking the world slowly but definitely. Testsigma, as a platform facilitating such methodologies, uses English as part of their no code solution. Any person speaking English can perform automation testing on web, mobile or hybrid applications within the day. It makes the process extremely easy. Hope you give this tool a shot and provide your feedback in the comment section. Thank you for giving this post your valuable time.
Also Read: The Biz of Writing Code