#automated visual testing

[techvirtual]

Best Automation Testing Tools: The Ultimate List

Let's take a look at top functional Automation Testing Tools for Visual QA. It can save you from numerous uncomfortable situations. There are two methods of visual QA testing, manual and automated testing. Visit - https://bit.ly/2MlBuM2 for more info.

[applitools]

How Applitools Changed Product Development at LexBlog

Guest post by Jared Sulzdorf, Director of Product Development at LexBlog

There is an art to managing websites that many do not appreciate.

The browser wars of the late 90s carried over into the early 2000s, and while web standards have helped align how these browsers render front-end code, there are still dozens of versions of the five major browsers (Edge has joined the crew!), all with their own understanding of how the web should look and act. Add to that the fact most digital properties ship with many templates, each with their own way of displaying content, and those templates in turn may run on dozens or hundreds of websites, and you’re left wondering if this internet thing is really worth it.

At LexBlog, where I hang my digital hat as the lead of the product development team, we manage well over one thousand websites. From the front to the back-end, it’s our responsibility to ensure things are running smoothly for our clients who range from solo lawyers to some of the largest law firms in the world. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that expectations are high, and our team works to meet those standards during every update.

While our product development team makes great use of staging environments, functional testing, performance monitoring/server error logs, and unit tests to catch issues through the course of the development cycle, it still isn’t enough. The reality of developing on the web is that you can’t unit test how CSS and HTML will render in a browser and humans can only look at so many screenshots before losing focus.

Prior to finding Applitools, LexBlog used Fake (http://fakeapp.com/), a web automation software, to visit our sites in a staging environment after a front-end update and take a screenshot. One of our support teammates would then leaf through these screenshots in an effort to find unexpected changes and report back when they were done. Unfortunately, this approach was just not scaling, and our team was running into a myriad of issues:

Deployments would wait for weeks while manual testing was performed

Manual tests would invariably miss errors and when the code was deployed, hotfixes would quickly follow

The overhead in managing the humans and systems necessary for performing manual tests was untenable

All of the above led to low morale

The first major breakthrough was finding Selenium to replace Fake. This allowed the product team to better manage the writing and reviewing of tests. However, now that the ball was fully in our court, there was still the problem of reviewing all these screenshots.

Being technically inclined, we looked for programmatic solutions to comparing two screenshots (one taken before an update, the other after an update) and finding the diff. A myriad of tools like PhantomJS (http://phantomjs.org/) or BackstopJS (https://garris.github.io/BackstopJS/) were researched and thrown aside until we found Applitools.

Applitools had everything we were looking for:

An SDK that supported languages our team was familiar with

UI for reviewing screenshot comparisons

A cloud-based portal allowing multiple teammates to log in and view the results of the same test

After spending some time investing in a host of desktop scripts written in Python, we noticed immediate improvements. Deployments for front-end changes went out the door faster and with less errors and our team was able to focus on higher-purpose work, leading to happier clients.

Over the years, we’ve consistently updated our approach to visual regression testing to the point where we can now introduce large changesets in code that renders on the front-end and catch nearly every regression in staging environments before deploying to production. Applitools, in combination with Selenium, Node, React, and the WordPress REST API, has allowed us to create a fully-fledged visual regression testing application that saves our team countless hours and headaches all while ensuring happy clients. It really is a match made in heaven.

Happy Testing!

[applitools]

[Webinar Recording] The Missing Link in Test Automation: Intro to Automated Visual Testing

Listen to Adam Carmi, as he takes a deep dive into the ecosystem of visual testing, including: challenges, tools, and best practices [including a live demo].

Automated visual testing allows you to automatically verify that your app's GUI renders correctly across all devices, browsers, and screen resolutions.

In this session, we will take a deep dive into some of the technological challenges involved with visual test automation and show how modern tools address them.

Watch this webinar, where we:

Review available open-source and commercial visual testing tools

Demo cutting edge technologies that enable running cross-browser and cross-device visual tests at large scale

Show how visual test automation fits in the development / deployment lifecycle

Watch it now - you can find Adam's slide deck HERE:

[applitools]

[Webinar Recording & Slides] Best Practices of Automated Visual Testing: Getting it Right for the Best UX

Watch this webinar and learn how you can release apps with flawless UX, while shortening release cycles, increasing coverage and effectively eliminating front-end defects and UI bugs, with automated visual testing.

In the competitive world of mobile apps, functional bugs or poor GUI will turn off a prospective user and often result in revenue loss. Yet the pressure to shorten release cycles is overwhelming, leaving little time for testing and no room for error.

So, how do you ensure that all of the visual elements of your app are functioning flawlessly without breaking the bank or delaying time-to-market?

The answer is Automated Visual Testing, an easy and reliable method to automatically validate that your app looks and acts as designed across devices, browsers, operating systems and form factors.

Watch this webinar with mobility expert Manish Mathuria (Infostretch) and automated UI validation expert Adam Carmi (Applitools), and discover:

What Automated Visual Testing involves

How it can help you helps shorten testing cycles while increasing coverage

The landscape of tools and technologies available for this increasingly important type of testing

Industry-leading best practices to quickly achieve maximum value with automated visual testing

** Full slide-deck can be found HERE **

[applitools]

[Webinar Recording] How to Test the Performance & Visual Appearance of Your App Under Load

Watch this on-demand webinar, to learn how to successfully combine frontend and backend testing, so you can see how you app behaves and appears under load.

Applitools and performance testing experts BlazeMeter teamed up to deliver this in-depth webinar on combining frontend and backend testing, allowing you to get a comprehensive view of your website, web or mobile app, while under load. The webianr covers the following topics:

Fundamentals of back-end performance testing and front-end visual testing

Types of rendering issues that can transpire under load – and how to detect them

How to gain actionable insights as to how your app behaves and appears under load

LIVE DEMO: How to run a full and comprehensive real-world test in real time, simulating thousands of users with Selenium

Watch it now: