IT Glossary
What is automated testing?
Checks written as programs: the same thousands of scenarios run in minutes, at every change — a permanent safety net under the software.
Release day arrives and somebody has to click through the whole application again — the same fifty screens, in the same order, with attention fading screen by screen. That is the manual answer to the question of whether a change broke something that used to work, and it degrades as the product grows. Automated testing is the other answer: checks written as programs — add the product to the basket, apply the discount, verify the total — running identically in minutes, at every change, across hundreds or thousands of scenarios at once. The vocabulary that turns up in meetings describes a pyramid. Unit tests verify small pieces of logic: numerous, fast, cheap. Integration tests exercise modules together with the database and the programming interfaces. End-to-end tests walk whole user journeys through the interface, few in number and reserved for the flows the business actually lives on, such as ordering, payment and invoicing. Above all of them sits the pipeline: tests run automatically on every change, and code that fails them never reaches production, which turns the net into a barrier. For a buyer the significance is blunt. Tested software can be changed; untested software can only be patched nervously, and the sentence about nobody touching a particular module is the terminal symptom. Writing the tests adds perhaps twenty to forty per cent to initial development effort and returns it within the first months of real use.
Let’s talk about your project
Message us on WhatsApp or send an email — you talk directly to a developer.
office@northdan.com · +40 752 070 247
Why it matters for your business
Regressions caught in minutes
Every change passes through thousands of automatic checks, so the complaint that something used to work stops in the pipeline instead of reaching your customers.
Brave changes instead of nervous patches
A net of tests makes modification and restructuring safe, so the application evolves at the pace of the business rather than freezing where nobody dares touch it.
Quality paid for once
A test written once verifies forever, unlike manual re-checking, which is paid in hours at every release and performed a little less carefully each time.
Frequently asked questions
What test coverage percentage should I demand from a supplier?
No magic number — ninety per cent coverage of trivial code with the payment flow untested is statistical theatre. The right request is expressed as priorities: the flows the business lives on, meaning ordering, payment, invoicing and registration, covered end to end; calculation logic and business rules covered at unit level; and, verifiably, tests running automatically at every release with visible history. A mature supplier shows you the pipeline happily; percentages alone are recited by anybody.
Does automated testing remove the need for human testers?
No — it moves them onto the work where people cannot be replaced: exploratory testing that asks what happens if I do something unexpected, judgement about real experience where something works but is painful to use, new scenarios and genuinely strange cases. Machines tirelessly verify what is already known; people discover what nobody thought of. The healthy combination puts routine on the machines and creativity and judgement on the humans.
Our existing application has no tests at all — can it be rescued?
Yes, incrementally and pragmatically. Nothing stops for a test-writing project, which never gets approved anyway. The net is built strategically instead: first end-to-end tests on the critical flows, small effort for maximum protection because they catch large regressions wherever those originate, then the rule that touched code gets tests, so coverage grows organically in the living parts of the application. Six to twelve months of that discipline gives an untestable application a working net with no mammoth project in the budget.
Let’s talk about your project
Message us on WhatsApp or send an email — you talk directly to a developer.
office@northdan.com · +40 752 070 247