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November 01, 2004
15. Conclusion
Applications are constantly evolving, which poses serious maintenance problems for automated customer tests. Maintenance problems can be addressed by using design patterns and thus, treating test code with the same importance as application code. This paper presented a catalog of design patterns that demonstrate how to facilitate: test code reuse without duplication, test adaptability to application changes, creation of new tests, and maintenance of existing tests. To this end, the following nine design patterns were presented:
Group 1: Basic Patterns
- Template - consolidate sequence of steps to perform a test
- Object Genie - consolidate object creation and initialization logic
- Domain Test Object - consolidate knowledge of application's UI components
- Transporter - consolidate navigation logic
Group 2: General Design Principles
- Dumb Test - minimize tests' knowledge of the application
- Independent Test - maximize test independence from other tests
- Don't Repeat Yourself - minimize duplication of code between tests
- Multiple Failures - maximize the information obtained from each test
Group 3: Architectural Patterns
- Three-Tier Testing Architecture - separate test code into layers
The design patterns were categorized into three groups: Basic Patterns, General Design Principles, and Architectural Patterns. The basic patterns form the building blocks that the general design principles use to establish best practices. The architectural pattern dictates the organization of all test code into a reusable framework.
This paper has demonstrated how design patterns can be applied to increase the effectiveness of automated customer testing. This results in tests that consistently provide valuable and reliable feedback about an application. It is my hope that this information will be of benefit to others in their automated testing endeavors.
Posted by Misha Rybalov at November 1, 2004 02:32 PM