Selenium/Playwright explained to non-technical person
Tags: selenium, playwright, softwaretesting, hiring
Published: 2024-02-18 22:52:34

Aimed to non-technical audience, this post explains what is automation tool **selenium** and **playwright**, in everyday analogy. 

Imagine Selenium or Playwright as professional bodyguard assigned to protect bustling metropolis called "[About YOU](https://de.linkedin.com/company/about-you) webshop" 


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/k36csazxih22hz49nlxe.png)

This web metropolis is filled with various items, offering various clothing, shoes, accessories, etc. And quite often it has discounts, and best deals. This marketplace is constantly evolving, and the traffic is insane. To keep lifeline of the system running a good old bodyguard Selenium-Playwright is on his constant watch.   

This digital metropolis consists of:
- citizens (aboutyou users)
- storefronts (webshop pages)
- store item barcode (element locator)
- and much more

Mission of Mr. Selenium-Playwright is to make sure daily flow, and functionality of the metropolis is working seamlessly.   
Just as bodyguard protects and prevents certain problems, Mr. Selenium-Playwright mimicks user interaction to ensure every part of the metropolis works as expected. He can blend in using different disguises(browser) to ensure his employer understands the experience of every citizen(user). 

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### Wanna find out how does a normal day look like for bodyguard Mr. Selenium-Playwright?  
 

Ok let's dive into it.

###### 1. Patrolling metropolis
Every day, mimicking citizen behaviour he goes through every storefront, including store items all through the cash register, where he confirms he can purchase items without any issues. He executes all actions citizens would normally do.  

Therefore, he regularly walks through the digital streets(executing automated tests) and ensures all storefronts(webshop pages) are working and makes sure citizens(users) can use them without experiencing any faulty(bugs) behaviour that may cause metropolis to close down or repel user from entering once again.   
   
###### 2. Catching and identifying
Each time he executes a list of scenarios citizen(user) would do, there is a result at the end of each scenario. Sometimes those scenarios result in finding bugs/issues. He gathers evidence, and gives exact location of faulty(bug) behaviour, and a screenshot.  
 
###### 3. Reporting
At the end of each run of citizen behaviour test, he gives a nice report. This report is delivered to his boss. In that report he displays how many scenarios he executed, how many of them passed and how many are with faulty behaviour.   


### For what is Mr. Selenium-Playwright useful?  

In the narrative of "AboutYou Webshop" Selenium and Playwright automation tools stand as the guardian of the digital city, working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that every user action, application functionality, elements is as smooth as a well-oiled machine. Magic of how Selenium or Playwright can execute all of these tests lays in hands of your software tester aka QA Engineer. That individual will write code for each scenario and add that to a continuous integration job, where those tests will be run on a certain schedule

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###### Facts about automated tests: 
- they run faster then any other manual testing
- reports are delivered after each test run
- repetitive regression testing is no longer boring 
- find out if new features blend in with existing ones perfectly or they break something
- saves time which gives QA Engineer more time to focus on complex testing scenarios that may require human judgment
- win on the long run (the more automated tests you have the bigger ROI)
- more time for exploratory testing
- more time for writing new automated tests
- covers more combinations than any human can in given time
- eliminates human error


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