Selenium Best Practices For Efficient Test Automation

After years of working with the Selenium framework, I have realized that the ‘One size fits all’ approach does not apply to Selenium test automation. Though there are no thumb rules for the design and development of scalable automation tests, there are certain principles that you must follow when writing tests using the Selenium framework. The principles can also be termed ‘Selenium best practices’.

In this blog post, we discuss the top 16 Selenium best practices for Selenium test automation which might help you develop well-designed and scalable test suites (or test cases).

A majority of the Selenium best practices discussed subsequently in the blog are agnostic of the programming language being used for Selenium test automation. So, regardless of the language you use for automation testing with Selenium, these Selenium best practices will still be of value.

1. Avoid Blocking Sleep Calls
2. Name the Test Cases & Test Suites Appropriately
3. Set the Browser Zoom Level to 100 percent
4. Maximize the Browser Window
5. Choose the Best-Suited Web Locator
6. Create a Browser Compatibility Matrix for Cross Browser Testing
7. Implement Logging and Reporting
8. Use Design Patterns and Principles i.e. Page Object Model (POM)
9. Use BDD Framework with Selenium
10. Follow a Uniform Directory Structure
11. Use Data-Driven Testing for Parameterization
12. Do Not Use a Single Driver Implementation
13. Come Up with Autonomous Test Case Design
14. Use Assert and Verify in Appropriate Scenarios
15. Avoid Code Duplication (or Wrap Selenium Calls)
16. Leverage Parallel Testing in Selenium