The good, the bad and the ugly of test automation

Each manual tester that I know wants more excitement and challenge in his day-to-day work.

Because, lets admit it, manual testing gets boring at times.

So the testers look at the next best thing such as test automation.

They imagine a day when, having enough knowledge and skill, the manual testing will be traded with test automation.

Which will be exciting, challenging, interesting and never boring.

In other words, Good.

This is obviously not true all the time.

Test automation experiences can be good.

But also bad.

Or ugly.

Good, bad and ugly, 3 faces of test automation.



Have you seen this movie with Clint Eastwood?

The good, the bad and the ugly is one of the greatest films of all time.

It is about 3 gun fighters, the good, the bad and the ugly, all in search of a burried treasure.

Clint Eastwood as Blondie: The Good, a subdued, confident bounty hunter, capable of pity and providing comfort for dying soldiers,

Lee Van Cleef as Angel Eyes: The Bad, a ruthless, unfeeling, and sociopathic mercenary.

Eli Wallach as Tuco: The Ugly, a comical and oafish but cagey and resilient, fast-talking Mexican bandit who is wanted by the authorities for a long list of crimes.



Back to test automation.

How are automation projects good, bad or ugly?

The Good

You get hired to create test automation scripts for a web site.

The website already exists and it is stable.

There is no test automation in place.

Test data is easy to get and recreate.

The test environment is not shared with other test and development teams and can be easily refreshed.

It is your responsibility to create the test automation project from scratch including

• the test scripts
• the page objects
• the test automation framework

You have the knowledge and the skills for the job.

You will not do all work by yourself but as part of a team that includes other people with similar knowledge, motivation and skills.

The Ugly

You start a new job and get handed an automation project created a few years ago.

Multiple teams worked on it during this time and created a few thousands of tests.

The tests run with a 30% fail/error rate.

The code has

• tons of duplication
• classes with thousands of lines of code
• lots of static delays and implicit waits
• it supports multiple applications (mobile site, desktop site)

The page object model is applied incorrectly with each page class having separate methods for clicking, typing, getting the value of each element.

The test environment is shared with other manual test teams.

The test data is very difficult to configure and recreate.

It is your responsibility to clean the project up, to stabilize it by reducing the fail/error rate and to bring the project in shape.

The Bad

This is when you get hired for a test automation job and you are not ready for it.

Your skills are incomplete and your experience limited.

There are high expectations from you and you cannot deliver.

Not without significant time dedicated to training.


3 faces of the same experience.

The good, the bad and the ugly of test automation.

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Alex Siminiuc