Why gui testing

What is GUI testing? Why perform it? How to perform a GUI test? These are a few questions that we will cover in this article. Read and learn about GUI tests. How can you determine the quality of visuals your users will interact with on your app or software? The answer is to perform GUI testing. The aim of a Graphical User Interface testing is to establish compliance between functionalities and business specifications.

GUI encompasses a set of graphics assets and visual elements, including colors, radio buttons, cursors, illustrations, menus, windows, text boxes, which your users interact with on your software. And to do so, conducting GUI testing is indisputable. For that reason, we will break down the steps to go about it. Backed by over five years on the market, our QA team possess demonstrated expertise, which will act as a resource in aligning our guidelines with correct practice.

This guide is your introduction to the basics: why GUI testing is important, how to carry it out, and some examples of GUI tests — so you have everything you need to start delivering an. GUI testing is a necessary check of the interface — web or app — a user works on.

This is the GUI — the interface a visitor should see: in the exact colors and texts. Anything other than that is a failed test. This test is impactful to its visual design for any software developed as it checks all graphic elements. Imagine yourself as a user who decided to try a software application.

You start the app, and at first glance, it is impossible to understand anything. All the crucial elements are small; you have to work hard to figure them out. Due to the five rows of the toolbar, there is almost no workspace. The point? A bad user interface is like a cranky receptionist.

Unfortunately, both leave a bad taste that lasts. So, we have to get our testing right. It is convenient to use where the UI is unstable and go through a lot of changes. It is viable for quick checks which can be done at any moment. Moreover, manual testing requires expertise and skills to validate design elements which are not possible without a human tester.

GUI record and replay tools are used to test applications for their user interface. Using such tools, testers run an application and record the user interaction with the app.

A script runs to track and save the user actions, including cursor movements, which can be replayed several times to find the issues in the interface. It also supports automated regression testing. It is can be used for cross-browser testing. It is a convenient and lightweight solution for testing. Recapturing and replaying test cases to check functionality is time-consuming, and tracking their updated version is a cumbersome process.

This approach is useful in creating accurate test cases using system requirements. It is a structured, thorough, measurable form of testing. Model-Based testing is preferred as the technique aligns with requirements which define even the undesirable states a GUI can attain.

An automated test case generator produces test cases to cover all the paths between start to finish stage. The number of test cases generated automatically is large and it requires a lot of time to execute.

You need to implement a test case selection algorithm to reject all inadequate scenarios for test cases. It means you need a test case filter to select the required test cases as the set is too big and will consume more time. The above problem has one solution, opting for a manual approach to finalize test cases. The process can be integrated with the automatic generation of test scripts after tester manually shortlist the test cases.

So if we conclude saying model-based testing makes GUI testing easy then yes it does. Only when it is used for a well-designed process where it is easy to generate a test set by performing dummy testing and running test cases.

But it is not appropriate where a test set consumes a lot of time in execution. Efforts are required in building a model and short listing the test cases using an algorithm and test script generation, which makes it expensive. A test plan defines the scope of the test project. Before running test cases, it is important to create a test plan to identify the scope of the project, resources available and functionalities to be tested in the application. Any software project seeking to automate GUI tests will eventually face common challenges.

Some may be specific to the individual organization. Others are commonly faced by any software project. Computers need to be told exactly what the expected behavior and state is. This is a highly positive aspect of test automation. However, existing test cases may not be as precise in their current form. In such cases, reviewing test cases may be required. Typically, the need for review becomes apparent when implementing automated test cases. Furthermore, there are some tests for which there is no clear and definite description of the desired outcome, such as.

Domain experts can clarify the desired behavior in a free-form language which can then be augmented with logic driving the UI by a tester. Test cases need to be written, and test plans need to be laid out. Manual testing permits a rather free-form description of test cases. This permits some convenience when writing test cases at the risk of losing precision. GUI test automation incurs an additional one-time overhead.

QA teams need to decide on a suitable test automation tool. Testers need to familiarize themselves with the tool. It may be necessary to port test cases to a format suitable for consumption by the tool.

Tests are executed for the entire lifetime of the software product. In particular, tests are typically executed a lot more often than they are modified.

Thus, the long-term benefits of faster and more reliable test execution soon outweigh the up-front investment. The effort associated with introducing test automation into a project amortizes over the entire lifetime of the product. Not all test cases verify behavior which is easily accessible to a computer. Such test cases likely do not lend themselves to test automation. Technically, a full end-to-end test would need to observe the printer.

It would need to check that the paper displays the intended output. Successful test automation efforts concentrate on the low-hanging fruit. Many projects define a large number of relatively simple test cases. Testers often find them to be boring and will greatly appreciate if a computer can take over the work. To address this challenge, make sure to select an appropriate test automation tool.

The test automation tool needs intimate knowledge of how the application under test is constructed. That way, it can access individual objects and perform object-based testing. Automation can be such a time saver that testers end up automating everything. As a result, test cases tend to accumulate over time. This results in ever increasing test suites with more and more test code to maintain.

Executing test suites takes longer, too — jeopardizing the benefits gained by faster test case execution! A classic example is test case overlap: over time, as the application under test changes, test cases may exercise very similar or even the same functionality. This makes test suites run slower at very little gain. A good code coverage tool is highly recommended for this. In the best case, it integrates tightly with the GUI test automation tool. That way, you can easily review the code coverage per GUI test case as well as identify test cases which provide no or only very little extra benefit.

GUI test automation is a major improvement for all but the simplest software development projects. Implementing a test automation early in the process maximizes the time over which the initial one-time investment amortizes. Designing test cases with automation in mind increases the leverage of the tool, liberating the QA staff to concentrate on higher-level tasks which only humans can perform.