Enhancing the Effectiveness of Software Test Automation

Abstract

Effective software testing can save money and effort by catching problems before they make it very far through the software development process. It is known that the longer a defect remains undetected, the more expensive it is to fix. Testing is, therefore a critical part of the development process. It can also be expensive and labor intensive, particularly when done by hand. It is estimated that the total effort testing software consumes at least half of a project’s overall labor. Automation can make much of the testing an organization does more accurate and cheaper than merely putting several people in a room and having them run tests from a paper script. It also frees the testing staff to do more specific and in-­‐depth testing than would otherwise be possible. This paper focuses mainly on software test automation techniques and how automation can enhance the efficiency of a software team as well as the quality of the final product.