Diversification isn’t a new term in the application development market. This is because, with the increasing demands and revolutions in the customer base, app companies have to keep up and change the code working mechanism of the apps. For reference, we can consider that during the early stages, applications were only accessible through the desktop. However, now they have been available on every compact device like smartphones, tablets, and even smartwatches.
However, currently, there is a rising trend of using television as a one-stop entertainment solution. In such cases, the users want a stable performance on all applications accessible on televisions. Market statistics show that the use of smart TV apps has risen by almost 30% in the past three years. So, app companies should do automated testing of smart TV apps for improving their efficiency.
With this article, we will try to focus on the core process of automating smart TV applications and some possible challenges that might come the way. We will also discuss some efficient platforms and tools that can help the developers along the way.
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Understanding the Process of Automating a Test
As we can easily understand, automating a test involves the elimination of human involvement in the test execution process. This is because, during this process, the system will utilize various test files consisting of multiple predetermined parameters for executing the testing process. These sets of data will help the computer to act like a regular user and interact with the application.
Based on these interactions, the system will generate a report that will show the user interactivity and stability of the application. These results will help the developers to understand whether the application is ready to be released to the open world. The developers can also make changes in the test file to make the reports customized according to their requirements. It is also possible to store and reuse the test scripts in future app projects.
App companies can most benefit by introducing test automation in a repetitive test case. This allows the developers to focus on other creative parts of the application development project. For instance, they can try to create innovative features that can be added in a future update. However, while beginning test automation, the developers must be aware of its crucial drawback.
While making the transition, the developers have to invest a lot of money to set up the test automation bench. These investments will cover the expenses of integrating various tools, libraries, and dependencies that are important for the proper functioning of an automation test bench. So, companies that have business constraints or lower returns on investment must be cautious before making the transition.
Benefits of Introducing Test Automation
Before understanding how to automate the smart TV app testing process, the developers need to have a general idea about automation testing. This knowledge will help them to realize the full potential of a test automation bench. Based on our research, we have created a list of the major advantages of starting with automation testing. They are as follows:
- Automation testing helps the developers to massively improve the test coverage. This is because, with the help of test automation, developers can initiate multiple test instances at the same time. It also has a significant role in improving the target audience base for a company.
- With test automation, the developers can use parallel testing configuration. It is a modern testing process that helps the developers to verify multiple device configurations at the same time. Experts believe that parallel test execution has a crucial role in improving the efficiency of the overall testing process.
- While using automation testing, the developers can also integrate various other tools, platforms, and libraries that can further improve the efficiency and quality of the application development process. We will understand more about the integration of tools and platforms in the latter part of this article.
- While using test automation, the developers can introduce Agile methodologies in the application development process. Agile methodologies are a modern app development process that helps to improve the coordination between the development and testing teams of a company. This means that the app development company can run the development and testing process side by side while massively reducing the production phase.
- Automation testing is highly beneficial for regression testing which is mostly repetitive for all applications and can put mental stress on the app developers. It also benefits other test cases like unit testing, data analysis testing, and user interface testing.
How to Automate the Testing of Smart TV Apps
Smart TV apps have gained a lot of popularity in the recent application industry. In this segment, the most popular names are Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku TV. The common practice regarding the testing of smart TV applications includes the use of emulation software. However, the developers fail to realize that emulation software cannot generate proper results especially when it is related to the physical specifications of a device.
For instance, with an emulator, the developers cannot understand the change in an application behavior based on a low battery, broken display, or a user input error. So, the most efficient solution is to use a cloud platform like LambdaTest that can help the developers to conduct testing on real devices over the cloud.
Now let us discuss the steps that can help the developers to conduct the automation of smart TV app testing on the cloud:
- The first step is creating a test plan that will consist of all the testing processes that the developers will conduct on the application. In this process, the developers also have to categorize the tests according to their priority. This will help the developers to keep track of all the important test cases. During this process, the developer should also include members from the testing and production team to maintain active participation in the application development process.
- Now the developers have to choose their preferred framework for creating the automation test cases. Multiple alternatives are easily available in the market. While choosing the test automation framework, the developers must keep their requirements in mind to make the correct decision.
- Now it is time to write the automation test cases for every target element of the smart TV application. We would recommend the developers write the test scripts in the JavaScript programming language. This is because it is one of the most well-known languages currently available and has widespread support in all the possible frameworks and libraries. So, the developers will not face any compatibility issues while working with JavaScript.
- After this process, the developers have to import the test cases into the LambdaTest cloud for the initiation and execution of the automation test scripts. It is very important to name the test scripts according to the target elements for keeping track of all the processes in the application development phase.
- Now the developers have to choose their target platform to run the automation test cases on smart TV apps. We would recommend the developers focus on all the popular names in the market to maintain a widespread customer base. It will also help the developers to continuously expand their target audience and build a positive image for the brand.
- After this process, the developers simply have to wait for the completion of the test execution process. LambdaTest can also help the developers conduct multiple test instances at the same time to reduce the overall testing phase for the smart TV application. After the execution of all the test cases, LambdaTest will automatically display the test reports for every individual test case.
- Based on these reports, the developers can proceed to the debugging phase for the web application. Since LambdaTest helps to keep a record of all the bugs and errors with the help of screenshots and video recordings, the developers will not have any problem tracing the bugs and taking required actions. After this process, the application is ready to be forwarded to the production phase.
Tools and Platforms that can Benefit the Automation of Smart TV Apps Testing
As we already discussed earlier, tools and platforms can massively benefit the automation testing process for a company. Moreover, while the developers are working on new applications like smart TV apps, it can massively reduce the learning curve. Moreover, certain tools like cloud platforms help save a lot of time and expenses by eliminating the need of having an onsite physical device lab.
This is because while using these platforms, the developers can achieve similar test results while executing the test cases on a cloud-based platform. It also helps the developers to verify the proper performance of their applications on certain devices that are no longer available in the market. We can improve our knowledge about the influence of cloud platforms by considering LambdaTest as a discussion point:
To introduce LambdaTest to the new developers, we can say that it is a modern, secure cloud platform for executing cross-browser testing on web apps. While using LambdaTest the developers can import the automation test cases from multiple test frameworks like Selenium, Cypress, and Playwright. While working with smart TV apps, LambdaTest removes the dependency on emulation software for verifying the performance of these applications.
This means that LambdaTest allows the developers to natively verify the performance on smart TV platforms like Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV. This platform also allows the developers to locally test the applications on the cloud platform and execute the testing process in a parallel configuration. Moreover, LambdaTest also helps developers to simplify the debugging process with video recordings and screenshots.
 The Conclusion
Based on all the points that we discussed in this article, we can easily say that the automation of smart TV apps is an important process for the modern application development industry. This is because, in this competitive market, app companies cannot afford to lose any segment of the user base due to their application incompatibility. Moreover, experts have already predicted that the influence of test automation will continue to rise on the app market.
So, app developers and testers need to keep their knowledge updated regarding all the modern introductions in the app market. So, in this regard, app development companies can also conduct frequent seminars to improve the knowledge of their developers. Lastly, it is very important to choose the correct tools that can complement the development practices of not only the company but also the developers and testers.
