Software design pattern for branching logic? - selenium

Question

In the context of test automation I'm using a simple version of the Page Object Pattern and facing the problem of having redundance in my code.
That said, in a class I'm having multiple methods which basically do the same thing but just return different page objects:
class Checkout {
gotoNextPageExpectCreditCardPage() {
clickSubmitButton();
return new CreditCardPage();
};
gotoNextPageExpectPaypalPage() {
clickSubmitButton();
return new PaypalPage();
};
...
gotoNextPageExpectErrorPage() {
clickSubmitButton();
return new ErrorPage();
};
}
I've done some research and thought of some design patterns like State Pattern, Template Method, Chain-of-responsibility, but am also thinking these might be overkill and that I'll have to do a huge refactoring.
Does anyone come up with a simpler solution?
PS.: I'm using node.js

Answer 1

PageObjectModel has its pros and cons, as any other pattern. Maybe you need to consider again what is your case and why you are using it. In most tutorials you will find, it is very easy and simple to implement, but those solve and demonstrate toy problems, not real life ones. I use POM only where the test framework API supports it by design, for example pywinauto. The concepts here allows you to chain your elements like so:
app.UntitledNotepad.Edit
And there is no point of repeating such screen structure all over your codebase, just put the UI details in a POM and provide the element when an interaction is needed.
notepad.EditInput.type_keys("pywinauto Works!", with_spaces = True)
As you can see - this is very far away, from Selenium and Web automation. But,
there are plenty of other patterns you can look for:
Object repository is very helpful when it comes to UI test scripts maintainability, I have used it in numerous big projects with great success (e.g. mSOA platform with more than 40 web sites)
Screenplay is a user-centred model, which helps you shift the focus of automated acceptance tests from low-level interactions with the system to thinking about who the users of your system are, what is that they want to achieve by their interaction with your system and how exactly they're going to do it.
Mission helps you modularise your code and create personas which describe business or functional interactions of software users.
Aiming at full answer - a good collection of other patterns in the xUnit world is the xunitpatterns. However, there is not a single pattern solution for your test framework you are building. One should follow and use other design principles and concepts as well. For example, your domain logic (business specific) should be layered in a DSL, having no knowledge of underlying drivers or higher level BDD specifications.