I recently read a well written and helpful paper written by Doug Hoffman titled: Test Automation Architectures: Planning for Test Automation. You can find it online at http://softwarequalitymethods.com/papers/autoarch.pdf

It covers many key points that need to be considered if you want to have effective and useful automated tests. Thank you Doug for writing it so many years ago and for sharing it.

Over the last seven months I have been talking to various people about how test automation ‘works’ and how the working affect the viability of their test automation. In December 2012, LogiGear published an abridged version of an article I have written on the topic http://www.logigear.com/magazine/mobile-testing/test-automation-interfaces-for-mobile-apps/ I hope you find the article informative and helpful.

I sometimes find analogies help people to grasp concepts and ideas which I otherwise might struggle to communicate effectively. So here are a couple of analogies for test automation interfaces:

1. They are the glue between your automated tests and the app you want to test. By picking the most appropriate glue for the job, your tests are more likely to stick around and work effectively.
2. The interface is similar to the way Velcro works, the hooks bind with the eyes to establish an effective connection.

I have some ideas and plans to expand the initial article into a small book on effective software test automation. e-mail me if you’d like to encourage that work. My email address is my name (julianharty) at Google’s fine email service: gmail.com I assume a human will be able to create the correct email address from this information 🙂