Quality assurance (QA) testing is an instrumental part of the software development process. While Agile development teams are moving toward test automation, there are still many parts of the process that require manual tests. Other teams may not be ready to invest in full test automation and require manual tests in the interim to deliver quality software.
Let’s take a look at tools that can help improve the manual QA process by increasing efficiency and reducing the time it takes to accomplish.
1. Selenium for UI Tests
A testing framework for web applications on platforms such as Linux, Mac, and Windows, Selenium is also used to test browser compatibility. Developers can test in a number of languages, such as Java, Groovy, PHP, Ruby, C#, Python and Perl. Selenium is part of most major browsers, including Firefox and Chrome.
Selenium is a browser automation framework that’s often used for test automation. If your team is looking to automate in the future, you may want to learn to write Selenium scripts and automate the most repetitive tasks. You can relieve yourself from the most mind-numbing tasks, while building a foundation for future test automation.
Using SauceLabs, you can scale Selenium tests across thousands of browser and operating system configurations to eliminate the need for manual testing of each configuration and dramatically speed up the time it takes to fully test an application. These capabilities are available as independent one-off tests or integrated into CI/CD workflows.
2. Proxies for Location Tests
Manual QA testers can use proxy servers to simulate being in different countries by changing IP addresses. While there are plenty of free proxy servers out there, many of them are unreliable and may show ads that impact the QA process. Proxy servers alone are also insufficient for testing applications that use browser-based location settings.
WonderProxy provides access to more than 240 proxy servers across more than 80 different countries covering 97% of the world’s gross domestic product. With the WonderSwitcher add-on for Chrome and Firefox, you can connect to your application from different parts of the world, including simulated browser-based location settings to cover all use cases.
When you’re ready to automate testing, WonderProxy integrates with both SauceLabs and Selenium to automate localization tests. You can quickly add these tests to your continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD) processes to ensure that your application’s location-based features are always working with each release.
3. Postman for API Tests
The rise of multi-platform applications has made APIs increasingly important. While Curl offers a bare-bones way to test API requests and responses, there’s a learning curve for manual QA testers unaccustomed to command-line operations, and the process can be tedious and error-prone. The results of API calls can also be difficult to read without the right output formatting in place.
Postman is a user-friendly tool for testing REST, SOAP and GraphQL API routes without using the command line. Using the standalone app or browser add-on, you can make requests and see the formatted responses. You can even save request templates (e.g. authentication headers) and reuse them without having to remember or retype them each time.
If you’re testing API-dependent applications, Postman enables you to simulate API endpoints and responses without having to set up or run a backend server. These same attributes are helpful when testing applications that have third-party API calls that may involve a cost — you can simulate them and know that everything functions correctly.
Postman is a robust toolchain that allows API developers to share, test, document, and monitor their APIs. With this tool, you can easily integrate the tests into your build automation. Postman is extremely valuable for functional testers and developers.
4. Jenkins
Jenkins is a continuous integration (CI) tool for testing codebase changes in real time. Jenkins lets you detect and resolve codebase problems quickly and automate build testing. An open-source program, it was forked from the Hudson CI tool. Jenkins runs on servers in a container and supports version control tools such as Perforce, Git, and Subversion.
5. Wercker
Wercker is a Netherlands-based software firm offering a continuous delivery (CD) platform that helps you build and deploy microservices and web-based applications. Based on Docker, Wercker sits between the code repository and the app. When you make a change in Git, Wercker grabs the code and puts it in a container to test it in isolation, then alerts you if any errors are present. This allows for continuous integration (CI) and rapid testing on the fly.
6. GitHub
GitHub is a version control repository used by millions of developers. Many software testing tools can be linked to GitHub accounts, so that reported defects are automatically recorded. For example, you might run manual tests on another testing tool while using GitHub for bug tracking.
7. JMeter
JMeter can be used for test plan building, load test running, and load test analysis. It has a GUI mode that allows you to create test plans manually, choose from a variety of templates, or record the application from a browser session. GUI mode also allows for debugging and viewing results.
Once your test plan is ready, you can use the non-GUI mode to run a load test from the command line. You can generate a CSV or XML file containing results and have JMeter generate an HTML report from that data.
So, when you’re testing, there’s no reason for you to be a hero and go it alone. There’s a massive array of free and paid quality assurance testing tools out there that have been built to help you with your work.
Link to the original source of the heading image: https://qa.world/qa-tools/