Selenium Automation Framework: A Detailed Guide

July 2024 · 7 minute read

Seeing the growing demand from users for the latest version of web applications and apps, developers have had to stretch themselves to continually deliver upgrades every few weeks. This has led to a growing reliance on automation, which helps shorten the software development cycle for both the coding and testing stages.

Automation testing has helped teams launch new features without bugs much faster. This, in turn, helps maintain high customer engagement and ward off competition.

In this detailed guide, we’ll understand how to use the Selenium automation framework, classified into Data Driven, Keyword Driven, and Hybrid Frameworks.

What is the Selenium Framework?

Selenium Framework is a suite of automation testing tools based on the JavaScript framework.

Thus, Selenium remains one of the favorite tools for testing as it meets the requirement of quick and reliable testing, which helps enterprises save time and money on testing.

Selenium Automation Framework: A Detailed Guide

Selenium WebDriver

Selenium WebDriver, also known as Selenium 2.0, is a collection of language-specific bindings that drive a browser how it has to be driven. It is the successor of Selenium Remote Control and consists of API, Library, Driver, and Framework that work together to enable test execution.

Selenium WebDriver for Automation Testing
Selenium IDE

Selenium IDE is a Chrome and Firefox plugin capable of logging natural interactions in the browser and generating its code in different programming languages.

Selenium Cloud Grid

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Why is the Selenium Framework preferred for Automation?

Automation testing has also increased the testing scale by several folds, ensuring customers have a fulfilling experience, no matter which browser or device they use. And thus, automation testing made its way to ensure cross-browser compatibility.

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Selenium is the most significant open-source automation testing suite used for testing among bigwigs to emerging startups. Statistically, it is used by over 57000 companies worldwide, enjoying a 24.63% market share among other software testing tools.

Selenium Automation Framework: Market ShareSource: Enlyft

Although it is mainly used by Computer Software and IT services companies, Selenium has not just confined itself to them. It serves other industries like Staffing & Recruiting, Healthcare, Financial Services, etc.

Types of Selenium Frameworks

Selenium frameworks based on the functional approach are classified into three main types:

1. Data Driven Framework

The data-driven framework is based on the different data sets created into an external file (excel sheets) and imported into the automation testing tool. When the number of data sets that the test framework uses as input is on the higher side, it is very difficult to change these values in the script every time to conduct the test.

And thus, these data sets are kept separate from the original script, which can fetch the required input each time from the data set excel sheet. This makes it convenient for the tester to modify the script without disturbing the data sets or vice versa, making it much more robust.

Thus, you can easily apply a single test for all the data sets available in the table without needing to modify each code.

2. Keyword Driven Framework

The keyword driven framework is based on keywords that form the basis of the functionality, takes in parameters and throw the relevant output. When the code has to cover a lot of functionality, it might need repetitive writing for some of its sections. And thus, keywords are written to abstract the complexity of the code.

Here, the operations or methods to be performed are written separately from the script in the form of keywords. These keywords, placed in an external file (Excel sheet), are called using the code. This enables testers to keep each of the functionalities separate. The keywords are available in the table, where you can modify them individually without hampering others.

3. Hybrid Driven Framework

Hybrid Driven Framework in Selenium is a combination of data-driven and keyword-driven frameworks. This framework uses different keywords and data sets, where the inputs and functions list are stored in separate files. Similar to the data-driven framework, it uses the same code for different data sets.

When to use Selenium Automation frameworks?

When many data sets are to be tested for the web application, opt for a data-driven framework, which separates them from the actual code.

If you’re wondering how other engineers would tackle it? Get the breakdown with David Burns, a core contributor to Selenium, Chairperson for the W3C Browser Testing and Tools Working Group, Editor of the W3C WebDriver specification, and Engineering Manager at BrowserStack.

Selenium Automation Framework: A Detailed Guide

How to get started with Selenium automation?

To start with the Selenium automation testing, you can refer the BrowserStack’s Automate documentation. Decide which scripting language and framework you are planning to use for testing. And, then you can install the prerequisite components. Try running a few sample test cases to get an understanding.

Selenium Automation Framework: A Detailed Guide

Using BrowserStack Automate, teams get instant access to a Selenium Grid of 3000+ browsers on real desktops, iOS, and Android devices.

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On a Closing Note

Given the demands of fast and reliable testing that spans various browsers and devices to ensure compatibility, automation testing using Selenium seems the best. Preferred throughout the industry, the Selenium Framework offers feasibility, flexibility, and cost-friendliness over other testing frameworks. Thus, making it an ideal way to deliver a consistent end-user experience that conforms with the continuous delivery approach.

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