How to automate testing for AI
systems

Do you want to make the jump from manual UI testing to
automated testing for your AI-driven application, but don’t
know where to start? In this guide, you’ll learn the four
steps to kickstart your UI test automation strategy to save
time, improve test coverage, and reduce production errors.
You’ll also learn how Tricentis customer Globality
successfully put these steps into practice using Tricentis
Testim.

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Globality is the number one B2B services marketplace and matches leading companies with small and midsize service firms worldwide for specialized high-value projects. Globality has revolutionized the RFP process with AI technology, and millions of people use its platform and transact billions of dollars every year. Here are the steps they took to modernize the QA process to deliver a high-quality experience.

Step 1: Set the right goals for test automation

It’s important to set clear and achievable goals when identifying a business objective–the same is true for test automation. Some goals organizations like yours might have in mind include:

  • Improving quality to enhance user experience and employee satisfaction
  • Implementing quality checks earlier in the lifecycle and detecting defects sooner
  • Reducing resource waste (time, money, or the dreaded ‘brain drain’ of your most technical experts) and shortening delivery time

Setting the right goals means establishing specific outcomes in certain time frames. Be sure to analyze every step against that goal. Instead of boiling the ocean, think about making incremental improvements, one cup at a time.

Globality’s software quality goals

Given Globality’s high-end enterprise clientele, quality is a core value and an exceptional user experience – every time – is a must.

With these things in mind, Globality set out to accomplish the following software quality goals in six months:

  • Improve product quality by increasing test coverage by 50%
  • Implement quality checks early by adding automation into its sprints
  • Free up manual testers for more exploratory and usability testing
  • Keep the number of bugs that slip to production at 0 to 1
  • Set up cross-browser testing

 

Step 2: Prioritize your automation efforts

The next course of action for companies looking to move to automated testing is to find a suitable time to introduce automation into your journey, identify the right quality level, and then prioritize your testing around it. Incorporating 100% test automation is unrealistic – you’ll always need to augment automation with manual testing. Consider the things you do most frequently and allocate sufficient resources to automate those tasks. Look at what’s driving revenues, user flows, or bottlenecks. Here are two ways of thinking to consider:

  • Risk-based approach: Identify user flows that are critical to your business or areas of the application that are more stable. For example, if 90% of your users use the same set of features, you might want to automate testing for that feature set because any issues would affect 90% of your user base. Another example is the checkout process, which is a revenue-generating flow.
  • Conversation-led approach: Most context-driven software quality professionals are subject matter experts who know the systems they test inside and out. Having these team members consult with developers or testers to identify repetitive areas for automated testing can go a long way toward understanding where automation can add value and where it can’t.

With the right automation approach, manual testing can be limited to a few critical areas. While automation might be able to test those areas of the application, you may find that the effort of authoring and maintaining those tests as code is too high.

One approach that can help you extend automation coverage is to think of your tests in building blocks. If certain steps are repeated across a number of tests, you can break these down into reusable components and share steps and groups of steps across tests. This can reduce duplication, improve visual understanding of the test flow, and simplify maintenance. If you do it right, then a big portion of your test will involve plugging the right building blocks together and making it easier to maintain, use, and extend coverage.