Keyword-driven Test Automation for Mobile Apps

The mobile application market is experiencing explosive growth both in terms of the sheer number of apps available to users and also in the logical complexity of their design. As the frequency of apps being released increases, the resulting product release cycles are shortened, and therefore automated methods of testing are the need of the hour. An automated testing method enables companies to perform consistent and repeatable tests, thereby improving efficiency and saving time and money. This is where keyword-driven testing comes in to play.

What is keyword-driven testing?

Keyword-driven testing is a method of software testing that can be used for both manual and automated processes. In keyword-driven testing, a keyword is used to represent an individual testing action; for example, a single mouse click, keystrokes, selection of an object, etc. It is basically used to construct a sequence of operations, in a specific keyword format, which are used to simulate the actions a user is likely to go through while using the application. Therefore, when it comes down to testing actions, a tester can just select the predefined keyword that represents a specific action or just record their actions on the fly, depending on the software, and the keyword-driven test is generated.

Since it is a method where the actions required to perform a specific operation are used to simulate tests, it is an extremely low maintenance process of testing, as any changes to the GUI of the application do not affect the testing process. It also allows the testing of applications to be performed at earlier stages of its development cycle as, again, it isn’t dependent on the UI of the application in question. The end result, therefore, is a technically sound product.

The benefits of keyword-driven testing

• The logical structure required for interacting with the application is created beforehand. As simple keywords are needed to invoke an interaction, it can be constructed by anybody, regardless of the nature and degree of their technical ability.
• Keyword-driven testing also provides a simplistic view of tests. It is quite evident to everybody what a specific keyword-driven test is supposed to do by just glancing over it.
• The tester, without having any prior programming experience, is still able to write a test script consisting of the required inputs, as well as data for verification, in the form of simple and convenient spreadsheets.
• As already mentioned above, the testing method is fully independent of the application interface, therefore allowing tests to be constructed and conducted before the interface is even implemented in the first place.
• Keywords can be reused while creating new test cases. Reusing the keywords ultimately makes it easier to attain greater test coverage, which makes the entire process far more efficient than a more atomistic approach.
• It allows you to run functional tests at much earlier stages of development. Testing the application at every step helps improve the overall automated testing success rate. This kind of thing can still be done without having to learn a scripting language.
• Since it can be implemented by non-technical personnel, it even allows business analysts to play a more significant role in the development cycle. With sufficient exposure to keyword-driven testing, they are successfully able to outline the testing requirements to the Quality Assurance and development teams.
• They are a low maintenance method of software testing as any changes to the application undergoing testing can be reflected with simple changes to the testing infrastructure.
• It also provides you with the ability to pass parameters to and from keywords in order to perform data driven testing.

Why Keyword Driven Testing for Mobile Automation?

Most of the mobile applications being tested have a limited range of screens with specific functionality, instead of a wide range of business flows. Since the Mobile Application testing is more User Interaction driven, Keyword Driven Testing for Mobile Applications is very advantageous, as it helps accelerate the creation of Manual/Automated tests by utilizing the existing keywords in the framework. The keyword driven frameworks for Mobile testing can also be designed in such a way that all the common interactions during testing, such as Social sharing (WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter) etc. and other activities outside of the Mobile application can be defined as keywords, which can further accelerate testing.

At Cigniti, we have spent multiple years developing such keywords based on our experiences delivering Mobile Automation engagements to various clients. Reach out to us and let us accelerate your Mobile Application Testing journey today!