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Creating, executing, and maintaining reliable tests has never been easier.
Last week, mabl launched integrated API testing that enables quality teams to incorporate API testing into their end-to-end tests for better test coverage. These new API testing capabilities streamline API test creation, execution, and analysis process with mabl’s low-code test automation platform so that testers can ensure quality across the entire customer experience.
Public APIs Unlock Better Customer Experiences Across Critical Functions
Automated API testing is strongly correlated with a positive user experience, ranking alongside regression testing and end-to-end UI testing as one of the most impactful tools testers have to improve customer happiness.
Source: 2021 Testing in DevOps Report
The APIs most likely to impact the customer experience, known as public APIs, are also the fastest growing category of APIs. These widely available APIs are a critical tool in digital transformation. Banking and financial services, for example, are expected to triple their use of public APIs within the next five years as they continue to compete for new revenue generations and participation in ecosystems.
Given how prolific public API use has become, it’s highly likely that any organization within the multibillion dollar API economy relies on public APIs as part of their customer experience. Common use cases include business-critical functionalities either directly integrated into customer internal processes like sales, support, and software development, or directly connected to their revenue stream, in cases like payment processing. Leveraging public APIs can be a valuable shortcut to delighting customers and offering new functionalities…but only if a reliable quality strategy is in place.
Creating a Unified Quality Strategy for Public APIs
Since APIs, particularly public APIs, are playing a growing role in the overall customer experience, testing strategies need to evolve accordingly. Though many quality teams rely on specialized tools to automate API testing, these tools rarely reflect the full role of APIs in the user experience and digital transformation.
A fully effective API testing strategy that improves test coverage should allow a variety of team members to contribute to API testing, regardless of coding experience. Developers, for example, may want to run quick end-to-end API tests in their local environments to troubleshoot issues early in the development process. Enabling fast, easy API testing supports shift-left and continuous testing initiatives while providing a useful opportunity for cross-functional collaboration. Testers, with their valuable combination of UX expertise and product knowledge, can integrate API testing into their end-to-end tests towards the end of the development pipeline to validate the complete user experience. Depending on how mission-critical APIs are to their organization, quality engineers may also look to routinely run scheduled automated API tests within their E2E tests as part of their CI/CD pipeline. The key is a flexible automated API testing platform that democratizes API testing to ensure quality across the entire customer experience.
Catch Issues Before They Affect Users
When automated API testing is embedded in development pipelines as part of continuous testing strategies, quality teams are able to quickly catch issues before they impact customers. With the right test automation platform, API testing improves end-to-end testing by reflecting the full user experience. Quality engineers can build tailored, comprehensive UI and E2E tests that cover email and PDFs, accessibility, and public APIs. In other words, the true customer journey.
These data points generate useful information about the state of the application or website, allowing quality teams to monitor long-term performance trends that flag issues well before customers notice them. Testing shifts from a reactive discipline focused on triaging discovered defects to a proactive effort that ensures customers are as happy as possible. The more testers are empowered to execute mission-critical API testing, the better the customer experience.
API Testing Elevates the Role of Quality Engineering
Software testing is ultimately data gathering. To fulfill their role as customer advocates, DevOps enablers, and mystery bug catchers, quality teams need solutions that empower them to test the entire customer experience. APIs, with their growing role in both delighting users and accelerating digital transformation, are an essential part of an effective automated testing practice. But simply implementing API testing with disconnected automated testing tools isn’t enough to ensure quality in the API economy. Instead, quality engineers must adopt unified testing solutions that democratize API testing across the development pipeline and empower testers to integrate API testing into UI and end-to-end tests. Quality is the make-or-break factor for successful API adoption; let’s build testing strategies capable of fulfilling this important mandate.
Start building an integrated API testing strategy with low-code test automation by claiming your free 14 day trial with mabl.
