Introduction

Automated mobile testing is an integral part of software development. According to Statista, 230 billion mobile app downloads were recorded in 2020. Thus, it’s essential to have the most effective and vital automation tool available to facilitate mobile app testing. A tool that lets you perform automated software testing and wholly automates the QA testing procedure could be the right choice. The device becomes the QA tester’s adjunct; it can perform nearly any QA testing conduct, running scheduled automated tests.

Functional testing is all about testing the interface between the operation on one side and the rest of the system and users on the other side. This article on functional testing talks about what functional testing is and how it can be of help to your enterprise, irrespective of your size, location, or revenue.

What’s functional testing?

Functional testing is executed to assure that the web application’s performance is in unity with the operational demands or specifications. All the functions in a web app are tested to ensure that the conditions are satisfied.

It involves black box testing and has nothing to do with the source code of the operation. Different functions tested during functional testing include checking the user interface, database, APIs, customer/ server communication, security, and other factors. You can perform functional testing, both manually as well as using automation.

In functional testing, the functionality of a web application is tested. These tests include testing the main attributes of the web application, assuring fundamental usability by assuring stellar user experience. Also, this needs to be made sure that the correct error messages pop up whenever an error condition occurs.

One similar illustration is Appium automation. It is an open-source tool for automating native, mobile web, and hybrid applications on iOS mobile, Android mobile, and Windows desktop platforms.

Types of Functional Testing

Multiple functional testing types can be carried out grounded on your user’s necessities. These functional testing types are frequently automated to release web applications quickly. The most well-known functional testing types are

Unit Testing

It’s generally performed by designers (who write the unit codes of the application) to achieve specific functionality for each unit of an application. During unit testing, it’s made sure that each element of the web application works as intended.

Unit tests support functional tests by correlating the factors that can induce outage. Finding bugs early in the process helps you avoid testing failures towards the crucial end of the cycle. Developers automate unit tests to eliminate bugs without rewriting the code repeatedly. Early testing procedures ensure that you deliver your better quality products briskly.

Smoke Testing

Performed on new releases and updates of the software, smoke testing is the process to ensure that the fundamental functional properties of the web application are working. The operation’s most pivotal factors and functionality are covered during smoke testing.

Then, the idea isn’t to be thorough with the testing efforts but to assure that the critical point of an application is working acceptably.

The web application is considered stable and dependable only if it passes the bank test. Once it’s sturdy, testers can perform functional testing for the recently added features and execute regression testing based on the scenario. Still, if the smoke testing fails, it means the current release needs changes and fixes.

Regression Testing

Regression testing is performed to ensure the functionality of a web app isn’t affected whenever a new code, improvement, or attribute is added to the operation. Regression testing is primarily done to find bugs that might have entered into the existing frame after adding new features or functionalities.

For example, let’s say you’re working with a caller administration system. You added a new attribute in the latest release, which generates a report of all the callers based on the division they fall into. Smoke and regression testing are done chronologically to ensure that the code from the older release doesn’t cause any new bugs.

Regression testing frequently becomes a challenge for testers, as they need to perform it every time a new point is added to the operation. It can be time-consuming and exhausting. You can effortlessly overcome this issue by switching to Selenium test automation. This can’t only help you automate your repetitive tests, but you can also gauge them to increase your test content with the help of Selenium Grid.

Sanity Testing

Sanity testing ensures that the alteration in the new form has fixed the issues without having any added bugs. Maximum testers frequently get confused with sanity and smoke testing, sounding analogous. But, there’s little difference between both these testing. Smoke testing is performed to bear out the end-to-end functionalities of a web app, whereas, Sanity testing is performed to confirm the latest functionalities of a web application.

Integration Testing

Integration testing is performed to check the workability of the modules of an application. Integration tests support operational commands and data to act as one ecosystem rather than individual components. It’s generally performed to find issues with UI operations, operating timing, API calls, data formats, and database access.

System testing

System testing refers to checking the entire, interlaced application to estimate its amenability with the given conditions. It’s performed after executing integration testing. Also, it isn’t achieved by the testers involved in developing the application; instead, it’s run by individual testers. It’s a critical part of functional testing as it verifies whether the application meets the functional, practical, and business conditions.

Cross-browser testing

You want your application to perform alike across all platforms. However, that’s not always the case because each web browser renders a web app otherwise based on their rendering engine.

For instance, your web app can perform well on Chrome but not on Firefox. Here, cross-browser testing enters the picture to check the functionality of a web app across various versions of the browsers, operating systems, and multiple devices.

Cross-browser testing helps you assure that your users will have the same experience of visiting your application no matter what browser or device they’re using. It’s generally performed once your application is developed and ready to release in the request.

Advantages of automated functional testing

Automated functional testing is pivotal for faster software release cycles; it verifies that the application is bug-free and ready for release. It provides multiple benefits to developers, as follows:

• Permits the dispatch of a high-quality product that meets end users’ necessities while assuring that they’re satisfied with the results.
• Produces a bug-free software product while assuring that all the application functionalities are working appropriately.
• It improves the overall safety and security of the application.
• Reduces the hazards and losses associated with the web app/ software product.

Steps involved in automated functional testing

There are many steps concerned in the automated functional testing of a web app, such as

• Determining the functional factors of the web app that needs to be tested includes introductory usability, availability, functions of the app, and errors.
• Creating the data that will serve as input for functionality testing.
• Determining the anticipated aftermath for the functionality based on the input data.
• Executing the test cases which are created for functional testing.
• And the last step involves comparing the affair results with the anticipated results, and if the outgrowth is analogous to expected results, then your functional testing is successful.
• Although it seems relatively easy to execute automated functional testing of a web app, it’s not that simple, especially for newcomers.

Ways for Functional Testing

Functional testing has two broad categories – positive and negative testing, which can be divided further as mentioned below:

Positive Testing – Positive testing ensures that the product meets users’ necessities efficiently. It can either be end-user tests, decision-based tests or alternate path tests.

An app is designed to aid its target audience. Hence, end-users are the most important critics of an application. End-user tests are conducted by involving a selected few who use and ultimately provide feedback. Based on this feedback, the backend teams send out updates and make relevant changes.

In decision-based tests, various input combinations are fed into the system to check how the app responds to each of them. This ensures the application is prepared to handle any instruction pertaining to the tasks it was designed to perform.

There might be more than one way to perform a single task in an application. Often, apps offer a user the flexibility to perform one task in multiple ways to enhance the user experience. This is known as alternate path testing.

Negative Testing – Negative testing ensures that the application behaves typically, indeed, if it’s subjected to unexpected data or constant changes in the source code. Negative tests validate an app with the help of invalid data. Such testing procedures, also sometimes called failure testing or error path testing, bring out the faults in the app, giving backend teams a fair idea of any circumstances when the application could crash. Hence, negative testing makes a software solution more robust and enhances the user experience.

Wrapping It Up

Every operation needs to be tested before releasing, and functional testing is considered pivotal. However, also it might not survive for long if a web operation does not meet the stoner conditions and stoner experience.