Selenium being an open source tool and offering flexibility and great strength, has become one of the most used tools for web application testing. It enables test automation in the different browsers and operating systems.

Beyond web applications, Selenium extends its capabilities through integration with Appium, another powerful open-source tool tailored for mobile applications. This combination equips testers to automate mobile app testing across Android and iOS devices, guaranteeing extensive coverage and reliability.

This blog post will walk you through the implementation of effective Selenium mobile testing and why Selenium proves to be the best for mobile testing.

Why Selenium for Mobile Testing?

Cross-Platform Support:

Selenium becomes more distinguishable due to consistent work across the platforms where the development of a compatible range of tests for Android and iOS can be created and run effectively. This also guarantees similar behavior and operations of the applications across different operating systems improving on the development processes and the experience of the end users of mobile applications. It helps to detect the problems in the early stages while running the tests simultaneously on different platforms, thus ensuring that it is optimally performing, and will be able to satisfy all your application users.

Open Source:

Selenium stands as a powerful open-source solution renowned for facilitating streamlined automation of mobile testing, free from the limitations of licensing fees. Supported by an active community of developers and testers, it evolves continuously through enhancements, detailed documentation, and robust support across forums and discussions. Embracing Selenium for mobile testing enables access to these valuable resources, ensuring your testing practices remain effective and aligned with the latest advancements in the field.

Flexibility and Language Support:

Selenium offers exceptional flexibility by supporting a wide array of programming languages, including Java, Python, C#, Ruby, and JavaScript. This versatility empowers testers to script in their language of choice, seamlessly integrating Selenium into their existing workflows. The ability to choose from multiple languages allows teams to capitalize on their current skill sets, enhancing automation efficiency and maximizing overall productivity.

Extensive Framework Support:

Selenium integrates smoothly with a diverse array of testing frameworks such as TestNG, JUnit, and NUnit, simplifying the organization and oversight of your test cases. This broad compatibility empowers you to harness advanced testing functionalities such as parallel execution, data-driven testing, and comprehensive reporting. Moreover, Selenium seamlessly interfaces with CI/CD tools like Jenkins and GitHub Actions, facilitating automated testing within your continuous integration pipeline. This comprehensive framework support guarantees that your testing procedures are robust, scalable, and optimized for efficiency.

Rich Ecosystem and Community:

Selenium thrives on a robust ecosystem and an active community that continually enhances its evolution. It offers a wide array of plugins, extensions, and third-party tools that can easily enhance Selenium’s functionalities to meet specific testing needs. The community provides extensive documentation, tutorials, and forums, offering invaluable support and resources for testers of all skill levels. This collaborative environment ensures access to the latest best practices, solutions to common challenges, and ongoing innovations in test automation.

Scalability and Parallel Testing:

Selenium excels in scalability, notably through Selenium Grid, enabling test distribution across multiple machines and environments. This facilitates parallel testing, where multiple tests can concurrently execute, effectively minimizing overall test execution duration. Leveraging this capability allows you to manage extensive test suites efficiently, ensuring thorough coverage and swift issue detection across diverse browsers and platforms. This scalability guarantees that your testing procedures remain efficient and impactful, adapting seamlessly as your application expands and evolves.

Best Practices For Effective Selenium Mobile Testing in 2024

1) Name the Test Cases & Test Suites Appropriately

When working in a team, there are times when your colleagues may need to improve the tests you have written. If you revisit the same test after a few months, it might be challenging to understand its purpose without thoroughly reviewing the entire implementation.

If some tests fail during execution, it should be straightforward to identify the broken functionalities simply by glancing at the test name. These issues can be easily resolved by naming test cases in a self-explanatory way, ensuring that neither you nor your teammates waste time scrolling through the implementation.

2) Avoid Blocking Sleep Calls

It is well known that the performance of web applications or websites is influenced by various external factors such as network speed, device capabilities, access location, and server load. These factors make it difficult to predict the exact time required for a specific web element to load. Adding a delay or timeout before interacting with a web element can help, as it allows the element time to load before further actions are taken.

Using a blocking sleep call (e.g., Thread.sleep in Java, time.sleep in Python) introduces a delay by pausing the test thread for a set number of seconds. In a single-threaded application, this will block the thread and the process. While blocking sleep calls can provide the necessary delay, the effectiveness of this delay varies due to numerous factors. There is no assurance that the delay will be consistently effective.

3) Choose the Best-Suited Web Locator

One challenge in Selenium test automation is that changes in the implementation of locators used in the test code require modifying the automation tests. Commonly used web locators in Selenium WebDriver include ID, Name, Link Text, XPath, CSS Selector, and DOM Locator.

Given the variety of web locators available, it is crucial to select the appropriate one to reduce the impact of user interface changes on tests. Link Text is often preferred in dynamic situations. ID, Class, and Name are not only the easiest to use but also less prone to breaking compared to other web locators.

4) Use BDD Framework with Selenium

Behavior Driven Development (BDD) is a widely adopted approach that enables writing test cases in plain English using Gherkin language. This approach allows not only developers and testers but also members with minimal or no technical expertise to contribute to test development.

BDD frameworks bridge the gap between business and technical teams by providing a common platform for all to collaborate on test enhancements. Gherkin files used in BDD testing comprise a mix of features, steps, and scenarios, along with Gherkin keywords like Given, When, and Then. The format of feature files and the keywords remain consistent across different BDD frameworks, making it easy to transition from one framework to another with a minimal learning curve.

5) Use Page Object Model (POM)

When writing Selenium test automation scripts, it is essential to ensure their maintainability and scalability. This is achieved by minimizing or eliminating the need for changes in the test script when the web page UI changes. If scripts are not properly maintained, and different scripts use the same web element, any change in the web element would require updates in multiple places within the test script.

This is where the Page Object Model (POM), a popular web UI automation pattern, proves useful. POM enhances test maintenance and reduces code duplication by creating a centralized object repository for controls on a web page. Each web page is implemented as a separate class, so every web page being tested will have its corresponding page object class.

Using the Page Object Model is one of the best practices in Selenium, as it helps in:

• Improving test maintenance
• Minimizing code changes due to updates in the product UI
• Enhancing code reusability
• Simplifying the visualization and modeling of the web page under test

6) Use Data-Driven Testing for Parameterization

A website or web application should be tested across various combinations of browsers, devices, and operating systems. Hard coding test values in automation scripts is not a scalable approach, as it leads to unnecessary bloat and potential code duplication.

A more effective solution is to use parameterization to achieve data-driven testing with Selenium. Parameterization allows test cases to be executed with different input combinations, or data sets. The more extensive the data set, the better the test coverage, which in turn improves product quality and promotes good Selenium test practices.

7) Do Not Use a Single Driver Implementation

WebDrivers in Selenium are not interchangeable. Executing automated cross-browser tests on a local machine is quite different from running them on a continuous build server. In such environments, it is incorrect to assume that the next test will use a specific WebDriver like Firefox or Chrome.

In a continuous build environment, integration tests will only receive a RemoteWebDriver, which can be for any target browser. Among Selenium best practices, it is recommended to use parameterization to manage different browser types and prepare the code for simultaneous execution, or parallel testing. Small frameworks can be created in Selenium using parameterized annotations (@Parameters in TestNG and @RunWith in JUnit).

This practice ensures that the implementation is flexible enough to work with different browser types.

8) Avoid Code Duplication

One of the key best practices in Selenium test automation is to avoid unnecessary code duplication. You may use various web locators like XPath, ID, and others to access web elements on a page. Frequently used code should be encapsulated in a separate API to minimize duplication.

Reducing duplication not only decreases code size but also enhances the maintainability of the test code. Wrapping Selenium calls is a best practice that can greatly improve the manageability of a complex test suite or test code.

9) Leverage Parallel Testing in Selenium

Selenium’s popularity is greatly enhanced by its robust support for parallel testing. Major test frameworks such as PyTest, PyUnit, TestNG, and Cucumber offer built-in capabilities for executing tests concurrently on a Selenium Grid.

For developers and testers looking to leverage parallel testing capabilities, cloud-based Selenium Grids like LambdaTest provide a powerful solution. LambdaTest, an AI-driven test orchestration platform, facilitates the execution of manual and automated tests at scale across more than 3000 real devices, browsers, and OS combinations. This platform seamlessly integrates with all major automation testing tools, enabling efficient parallel testing on a highly scalable and dependable Selenium Grid infrastructure.

End Note

Thus, it can be stated that Selenium mobile testing is not limited to the need to understand how to use this tool in order to have perfect work on various operating systems, such as Android or IOS. It is having an efficient set of tools that make developers and testers able to turn user experience into perfection through automation. Thus, realizing the full potential of Selenium, not only one can find problems at the initial stages of development but also challenge other teams, meeting the growing need for creating outstanding applications for mobile devices. Seize the opportunity of Selenium mobile testing for improving and achieving great results in the process of application development.