Given the prevalence of mobile devices in recent years, testing has become increasingly important. It seems difficult to live without a mobile device; people’s dependency on mobile applications makes testing mobile applications more important. Organizations are making huge efforts in developing high-quality mobile applications, frequently encounter various obstacles that prevent their excellent mobile applications from achieving success, which can result in lower user engagement, poor retention, or failure.
In consequence, it becomes essential to test mobile applications, which is exactly what Selenium mobile testing is invaluable for. Although Selenium cannot be used directly for mobile testing, Selenium-based frameworks such as Selendroid and Appium enable testing of mobile applications using traditional testing techniques. Selenium’s automation capabilities are quite successful across devices and platforms. It simplifies the process of testing mobile applications, allowing teams to create more robust applications for a seamless user experience.
In this article, we will discuss Selenium mobile testing and how it helps in scaling test coverage across devices. We will also cover the frameworks that help Selenium perform efficiently in mobile testing, along with some best practices to adhere to for scaling test coverage.
Understanding Selenium Mobile Testing
Selenium is an open-source automated testing tool. It offers efficient solutions for actively automating web and mobile application testing. Mobile application testing with Selenium helps developers actively verify application functioning during development cycles by enabling test simulation of user behaviors. Selenium WebDriver is specifically used in automation for mobile applications to expedite test automation for mobile, hybrid, and native web applications.
Its mobile testing features enable the parallel execution of automated tests, reducing the need for manual mobile testing and promoting more thorough coverage. Selenium testing for mobile applications helps teams by enabling continuous test automation and regression suites to create high-caliber digital experiences actively. Selenium is essential for testing mobile applications because it makes continuous test automation and regression suites possible, which enables them to actively provide high-quality digital experiences.
How Selenium Mobile Testing Helps in Scaling Test Coverage Across Devices
Open Source
Selenium is open-source and provides a suite of tools for automation testing of mobile and web applications. Since it is open-source, it allows for broad usage and modification, which creates a vibrant community with an extensive array of resources.
Appium Integration
Selenium’s popularity in mobile testing arises through its use of Appium, an API extender to WebDriver. Appium acts as a bridge across Selenium and mobile testing by allowing the WebDriver protocol to be effectively used in tandem with Selenium’s robust capabilities. Appium enables Selenium to test both native and hybrid applications.
Device and Cross-Platform Support
Appium is used to test iOS and Android devices using the Selenium framework to meet the demands of various applications on the mobile device. Applications that run on multiple platforms can take advantage of Appium’s ability to test Windows applications.
Multiple Language Support
Applications tested using Selenium and Appium integrate effectively with several programming languages, such as Python and Java. This flexibility helps testers to decide on their most preferred language from several options.
Enhanced Automation and Speed
Selenium allows testing experts to automate their manual tasks to minimize the time and effort spent on testing. By implementing Selenium, testers may save development cycles and, alternatively, enhance the quality of their applications.
Test Coverage
Testers can perform a thorough assessment of native, hybrid, and mobile web applications by combining Selenium with Appium. Selenium can test web-based functionalities found in native mobile applications.
Community Support and Resources
Along with resources and technical support, a robust Selenium community offers a wealth of documentation. The broad assistance from the Selenium community facilitates improved tool utilization, efficient problem-solving, and faster tool learning.
Expressive locator strategies
Expressive locator strategies involve identifying elements using advanced approaches such as id, name, class name, XPath, accessibility ID, and iOS predicates for automation.
Frameworks for Selenium to Perform Mobile Testing
Selenium can be used to automate mobile application testing; however, it does not provide direct automation. Selenium mobile testing requires the usage of Selendroid and Appium, both of which were designed exclusively for mobile automated testing.
Selendroid
As the name suggests, Selendroid is a Selenium-based framework that is used to test user interfaces of native and hybrid applications on Android. Another factor that should not be forgotten is the fact that, although the Selendroid framework is effective with emulators, it can also be extended to the Selenium Grid after it becomes compatible with real devices. The Selendroid framework allows testers to interact with multiple Android devices at once and is mainly intended for parallel testing and scaling.
Features:
- Android focuses: Selendroid is designed and optimized specifically for Android applications, rather than attempting to be a cross-platform testing framework. This leads to speedier test execution.
- No application modifications are required: Selendroid can automate application testing without access to the source code or the need for hardware. Black-box testing is enabled for installed application APKs.
- Interact with several browser instances: Test scripts can interact with several browser instances on the device, allowing for more thorough automation.
- Faster test execution: Using Android devices results in faster test execution cycles than other mobile testing options.
- A Java library for creating test scripts: Selendroid offers a Java client library with interfaces for creating automated test scripts, which results in better object-oriented code. Selendroid supports automating click actions in integrated webviews of hybrid Android applications, along with native applications.
- Noticed and retrieved from application crashes: If the application being tested crashes during the test run, Selendroid identifies it and resumes test execution from the previous known stable state.
- Continuous Integration Support: Test scripts can be used with CI/CD workflows to execute automated regression tests on Android applications.
- Emulator and real device support: Tests can be done on the native emulator that comes with the Android SDK, in addition to on real Android devices.
Appium
Appium is an open-source test automation platform for mobile applications. It enables QA teams and developers to write tests for native, hybrid, and mobile web applications. All of them can be for iOS, Android, or Windows.
Appium uses the WebDriver protocol to drive native application functionality and APIs. Appium makes use of automation frameworks provided by vendors, such as UIAutomator for Android and UIAutomation for iOS. This enables it to automate the testing of mobile applications by accessing internal elements.
Key Features:
- Cross-platform support: Tests can be developed once and then run across numerous platforms such as iOS, Android, and Windows applications. This saves substantial time and effort compared to rewriting separate tests for each platform.
- Support for various kinds of mobile applications: Appium can automate tests for native, hybrid, and mobile web applications. Native applications contain platform-specific code, while web applications function in a browser. Hybrid applications combine the two. Appium supports all three types.
- Real-world automated testing: Appium allows testing through integration to emulators and simulators, along with real iOS and Android devices. Testing on real devices increases trust that the application will work as intended on the intended platforms.
- Utilize pre-existing Selenium tests: As Appium is based on the Selenium WebDriver API, pre-existing Selenium tests can be modified very little and used again for testing mobile applications. Reusing test cases simplifies and expedites the process.
- Image-based testing: Appium uses image templates and comparisons to visually validate elements and screens, and ensure their validity.
Best Practices to Scale Test Coverage for Selenium Mobile Testing
Use Appium along with Selenium- Appium expands the capabilities of Selenium WebDriver to accommodate native, hybrid, and mobile applications for Windows, iOS, and Android. Selenium-Appium mobile application testing combines the best features of both frameworks to automate mobile testing.
Modular Page Objects- Each application’s screen is represented by a class in the Page Object Model, which contains procedures to interact with UI elements and identifiers. This approach guarantees code that is clear and reusable.
Measures of reliability- To make test execution dependable in the event of unexpected application behavior or problems with the test environment, include waits and syncs between test stages, exception handling, and failure retry mechanisms.
Match the priorities and test scope- Determine the extent of test automation by taking into account high-risk domains, essential organizational circumstances, and usage frequency. This guarantees that testing offers the greatest benefit.
Test across environments- Execute tests across emulators, simulators, and real devices to catch errors coming from environment changes in OS, screen sizes, etc.
Automate performance testing- Integrate functional testing with automated load, stress, and scalability testing to find issues that show at heavy usage, such as slowdowns and crashes.
Verify every behavior- To guarantee that all anticipated functionality and operational regulations are verified through specific test cases, use behavior-driven development with input from industry experts.
Shift left testing- Use shift-left testing to begin testing in the early stages of development cycles. Compared to later in cycles, this makes it possible to identify problems more quickly and affordably. Additionally, make use of test-driven development.
CI/CD pipeline- Set up CI/CD pipelines with technologies such as Jenkins to automatically run mobile test automation suites with each code commit and generate pass/fail reports. This approach provides constant feedback.
Promote team collaboration- Increase collaboration between developers and testers by using shift-left testing methods. Continuous feedback boosts developer confidence, whereas testers have an earlier influence on quality.
Utilize virtual test services- Use service virtualization techniques to imitate inaccessible backend systems or third-party services during development. This eliminates external dependency bottlenecks.
Leverage Cloud platforms- Implementing a cloud device platform is essential for ensuring scaling test coverage across devices. These platforms enable testers to choose from a wide range of real mobile, tablet, and desktop devices running several operating systems, including Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and others. LambdaTest is one of the most preferred cloud-based platforms that provide cloud access to a wide range of real mobile devices, emulators, and simulators. This eliminates the requirement for an in-house device lab, which saves resources and simplifies infrastructure handling.
LambdaTest is an AI testing tool that allows for manual and automated testing of web and mobile applications at scale. The platform allows testers to execute real-time and automated tests on over 3000 environments and real mobile devices.
In addition, the platform uses AI end to end testing to improve Selenium mobile testing, particularly with GenAI-native agents like KaneAI. This generative AI agent enables testers to write, debug, and evolve Selenium mobile tests with natural language instructions.
Conclusion
In conclusion, testing mobile applications using Selenium has evolved tremendously. Selenium mobile testing has a promising future because of its excellent techniques. It is free to use and offers extended support. Ultimately, with such great popularity, Selenium mobile testing is accelerating the future of testing to a larger and broader platform.
Moreover, combining Appium and Selendroid offers extensive test automation tools for mobile platforms. Appium and Selendroid are Selenium testing tools that enable fast automated testing of native, hybrid, and mobile web applications for the Android and iOS platforms. Test automation must prioritize impacted by user experiences, simulate operational configurations, validate across application layers, and trace back to requirements. Selenium testing is known for assisting the testing team in eliminating various issues from the application.
