Lack of training is something that creates a major roadblock for a tester. Often, testers working in an organization are all of a sudden forced to learn a new framework or an automation tool whenever a new project demands it. You may be overwhelmed on how to learn test automation, where to start from and how to master test automation for web applications, and mobile applications on a new technology so soon.
Thankfully, there are plenty of resources to help you deal with your question on how to learn test automation and guide you through the process of learning basics of automation testing to become skilled in test automation for web applications & mobile applications. In this article, we will cover Top 17 resources for test automation, ranging from blogs, workshops and online video tutorials and more to help you brush up the basics of automation testing with in-depth tutorials. I believe every tester whether beginner or experienced should follow them.
Email Newsletters
Newsletters are one of the best resources for test automation to stay updated about the latest things happening in the world of automation testing. If you subscribe to one, it will send a mail every day that has a summary of the best news, articles and blog posts from all the top automation testing websites. All you need to do is, provide your email address and subscribe to one. For starters, you can subscribe to the official weekly newsletter published by the Ministry of Testing. They publish interesting blog posts daily which can teach you about basics of automation testing and more, especially if you are new in the automation testing domain.
Workshops and Other Learning Platforms
Any kind of new technology, especially one that is related to coding and scripting is best learned when you have hands-on with the coding. Fortunately for automation, there are quite a few workshops where you can work on a project parallel while learning. Let’s take a look at some of them.
REST Assured Workshop – OnTestAutomation
Bas Dijkstra, an experienced test automation consultant and trainer shares his expertise and helps new candidates to master API testing through several courses on his website.
Although, there are many courses that offer API testing, most of them focus on a specific tool. The course offered by Dijkstra, however, teaches you about
→ The things you must look out for while API testing.
→ Role of API in modern software.
→ Covering all the tools that can be used for automated API testing.
→ Last but not least, you can get to learn API testing using the REST-Assured library.
You can also find his workshop at GitHub where you can have hands-on experience at the same time while learning about API testing to brush up your basics of automation testing.
Explore With Postman – Amber Race
Amber Race, a renowned speaker at the Testing Guild makes exploratory testers aware of the automation tools they can use through this workshop. The Explore-with-Postman workshop is available for free at GitHub, where you can cover the basics and get started with hands-on experience on automated API exploratory testing.
Citrus
Integration of enterprise application is usually done in phase with different interfaces. However, if the interfaces don’t have proper communication, it may lead to lots of unforeseen bugs and business errors. That’s why integration testing is important. Citrus is an open source framework where you can find the answer on how to learn test automation for integration testing of any data format or messaging protocol. You can download the framework for free and get started with the documentation where you can learn deeply on how to perform automated integration testing using the framework.
Learning Test Automation Through Testing Blogs
Still hung up on how to learn test automation? Well, Blogs are excellent resources for test automation in 2019. And with the demand for automation testing rising in the industry, the number of bloggers are increasing as well. Let’s discuss some popular blogs which will help you to learn basics of automation testing and become a master in test automation for web applications, mobile applications, and more. So you stay updated about the latest testing trends and technologies.
Guru99
Looking for a blog to learn test automation or advanced tutorials to help you scale above the basics of automation testing? Guru99 is your solution. The blogs posted here provides a vast knowledge repository regarding automation testing technologies like Selenium, Appium as well as other topics like performance testing, test management etc. Add this to your bookmarks and stay updated about whatever new trend is about to shift the balances in the industry.
LambdaTest
Apart from being one of the leading providers of cloud-based cross browser testing solution, LambdaTest also maintains a blog section that consists blog posts of all the common technologies, manual as well as automation testing as well as the LambdaTest experiments carried out by them which demonstrates cross browser compatibility issues. New blogs related to step-by-step Selenium tutorials for automation testing as well as upcoming trends are posted every week. Follow the blog to stay updated about automation testing and also to learn how LambdaTest makes your job easier by integrating automation testing and bug reporting in their cloud platform, along with resources of test automation for expanding the wisdom of web developers and testers.
Dzone
Another great resources for test automation is Dzone. Rick Ross as a founder came up with Dzone in 1997. Within 12 years, this site became the home of more than 1 million bloggers, consisting over 70,000 blog posts. The automation testing section is quite vast probably one of the largest. Any software testing professional can share what they know with other users. Each and every article is thoroughly reviewed by the editorial team of DZone before publishing. This ensures that only the top quality content is presented to the readers.
Adventures In Automation
Getting bored with your career as a manual tester and willing to switch to the vast world of automation? TJ Maher is here to help you. The blog created by this organizer of Boston’s Ministry of Testing is aimed at teaching new testers about the next best thing which is soon going to dominate over manual testing by easing other tester’s efforts. All the posts in this blog are categorically arranged based on sections like Beginner, Code Examples, Appium etc. TJ Maher also has a channel on YouTube that will provide you information regarding what new features are happening in the world of automation. So you could master test automation of web applications, mobile applications, and more.
Community Driven Chat Groups
If you are already working on a certain automation testing tool without having that much experience, what will you do when you get stuck somewhere? The answer is community driven forums and chat groups. Apart from Stack Overflow, there are certain forums which are the only test driven. Let’s discuss some of them.
Automation Guild
To access this, you have to register at the online conference of Automation Guild. Once you do, you get access to this active community where you can find lots of friendly fellow testing professionals who are eager to solve whatever query or problems you are facing.
LinkedIn Automation Testing Groups
There are some serious chat groups in LinkedIn that does not allow any random blog posting or other off topic discussions, You can post there only if you have some generic topic about automation testing.
Selenium Test, Automation and Architecture – Here the members can discuss and share their experience in designing test scripts, basic concepts and new tools they used while working with Selenium. This group also focuses on helping other testers to implement the best practices in project and organization level. You can discuss and learn everything from basics of automation testing to common problems, strengths, and plugins of Selenium in this group.
Test Automation Group at Facebook
There is no better way to create a group or forum than having one at the largest social network. Advance Test Automation is probably the largest group with over 7300 members. The group is aimed towards sharing experiences, interview questions, videos and tutorials about automation tools, testing frameworks, AI and other operating systems.
Podcasts – Educating & Inspiring You
Podcasts are excellent resources to learn test automation. They will help you by enabling you to download the audio or video content and listen to it whenever you have time, or if you lack a working internet connection. Let’s talk about some of the best podcasts related to automation testing.
Ministry of Testing’s Official Podcast
The ministry of testing has a vast community of skilled testing professionals, and you can see their skills reflected in their official podcast. You will not need any prior knowledge or scripting skills to listen to these podcasts. A wide range of personalities host those podcasts and cover multiple topics in each session. If you love storytelling and want to know the experience and work story of a tester, how to perform testing in a faster, better and more economical way, start listening to these podcasts.
### Test Talks
If you are familiar with automation testing blogs, you may have come across Joe Colantonio. His blogs do not have that many tutorials but they have all the latest news that is happening in the automation testing domain. Since 2014, he has also started a podcast, Test Talks. His podcasts are strongly biased towards continuous delivery and automation testing. To build up awareness about all the latest testing strategies and tools, without even needing to have deep knowledge in the subject, you can have this podcast in your playlist.
Adventures With Selenium
For Selenium, there are many experienced testers as well as testers who are new in this technology. For people who are new, this Podcast is a must to add in your playlist. Experienced panelists Matthew Heusser and Brian Van Stone tell you about how he has used Selenium in his automation testing process. The panel in the podcast also informs you about the latest software testing tools which the VC Community is betting on, how Appium and other new frameworks are impacting the business in Silicon Valley and so on.
Learn Test Automation by Video Tutorials
The best way a person can learn any new technology is via an audio-visual interface. There are lots of channels on YouTube that offers courses in various automation testing tools and technologies. Apart from that, there are few paid sites like Udemy, Coursera, etc. Let’s discuss a few best video resources for test automation.
Udemy – Selenium WebDriver Tutorial with Java and Cucumber BDD
Created by Tim Short, this tutorial will guide you through the automation testing basics. The 6 hours long tutorial consists about 70 lectures. After finishing this course, you will be able to
→ Write real-time automation testing scripts which can be used for testing web applications.
→ Learn how to integrate Selenium with Java
→ Simulate behaviors of a user and find elements inside a webpage.
→ Using Gherkins, you can develop BDD/Cucumber test plans.
→ Build custom libraries and a robust testing framework.
→ Using multiple browsers you can automate user functions and design a testing framework that is data-driven.
More than 9000 students enrolled in this training and it has a rating of 4.3 stars at Udemy. If your organization provides you a free account at Udemy for Business, you can complete this training for free. Or else you can purchase this at Udemy for a price of $11.
G C Reddy Education World
With more than 57,000 subscribers, this is probably the best free video resources for test automation that you will find on YouTube. G C Reddy is a software testing consultant and trainer based at Hyderabad. With over 20 years of experience, his YouTube channel covers everything from manual to automation testing. The video tutorials are really interesting and if you start step by step, you will get to know the basics of automation testing as well as do hands-on by working at a real-time project.
Appium(Latest 1.8.2)-Mobile Automation Testing from Scratch
In the mobile first age, Appium is an automation testing framework which you must learn to master automation testing of hybrid and native mobile applications in iOS and Android. Rahul Shetty’s course is here to help you. By Completing this 29 hours training consisting of 209 lectures, you will be able to
→ Automate the testing of any applications in any mobile OS by using Appium’s latest version.
→ Learn the coding standards that will help you to write automation scripts that are well optimized for mobile testing.
→ From scratch, you will be able to develop an automation framework.
→ Clear interview at any organization and show your ability to lead an entire automation project.
→ Get complete knowledge of the current version of Selenium 3.0.
→ Have a detailed understanding of Appium components like Maven, ANT, TestNG, Jenkins, etc.
→ Using the advanced reporting tools, you can create industry-standard bug reports.
However, before starting this course, you should have the basic knowledge and experience in manual testing. The course is priced at $11 at Udemy and the best part is, if you are stuck anywhere, you can contact the instructor or post a query at the discussions section. Within 12 hours, you will get a response.
That’s all from our side. I have shared the top 17 resources to learn automation testing in 2019 which I have found really useful in my career. Get started and take a deep dive into the awesome world of test automation. Do let us know if you have found any other useful resource that have helped you to master any automation tool.
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