Automated GUI Testing: How to Get it Right

The user interface is crucial when it comes to creating a reliable website or application. In order to ensure all the elements of the front-end work as expected and are displayed equally well for users across all devices and browsers, development teams conduct GUI (graphical user interface) testing sprints.

There are dozens of factors to determine the success of GUI testing. While a few unique features should be tested manually, a lot of developers prefer creating automated scripts to create faster, flexible, and reusable algorithms.

In this post, we’ll share proven tips on automated GUI testing strategies as well as a list of widely used tools.

What Is GUI Testing?

After a command line interface (CLI) has been substituted with the graphical user interface, developers start to face drawbacks. It turns out that the experience of using a graphical front-end is different depending on a device’s screen dimension, operating system, browser of choice, and so on.

By determining various test cases, a developer can determine if a system works according to business requirements. Here’s a list of elements that are normally assessed during GUI testing sessions:

• Menu bars;
• Dialog boxes;
• Text boxes;
• Bars;
• Tables;
• List boxes;
• Checkboxes;
• Buttons.

There are two ways to deal with GUI testing – manually and automatically. In this post, we’ll be explicitly covering the second strategy.

Who Needs GUI Testing?

Most development projects use a layered architecture approach. What a developer sees as a whole of data coverage and business component is wrapped for a user as a graphical user interface.

Apart from ensuring that back-end and the front-end code are properly connected, here are the most common features of automated graphical user interface testing:

Benefits of Automated GUI testing

GUI testing is mostly performed manually. However, while assessing the performance of small straightforward testers, a lot of developers write scripts for automated testing. In fact, there are more than a handful of benefits businesses are looking forward to exploring by using continuous automation frameworks:

Tips for Successful Automated GUI testing

Creating a GUI automation testing framework is challenging due to the enormous array of exceptions to each rule set by a team lead. However, when it comes to standards and best practices, here are the tips that testers follow to create a well-synchronized and functional testing framework.

GUI Automation Tools

The modern testing market is actively responding to the growing trend of automated testing by pushing out automated GUI testing tools that are designed to help developers write scripts and conduct sprints. Here are a few solutions that we find helpful in day-to-day testing activities and that could be helpful both for beginners and advanced software testers.

1. AutoIT

AutoIt is a scripting language environment. The syntax of AutoIT is wide and rich, with variables, operations, functions, and its own programming logic. Using the program, a tester is able to create powerful standalone .exe programs for GUI software testing. AutoIT is remarkable in terms of its community – there’s a forum with thousands of active users and a help desk.

Testers are able to improve the functionality of the program – you can upload extra plugins and packages.

2. iMacros

iMacros allows developers to automate scripting, testing, data extraction, as well as most development activities. In order to save an action as a macro, a tester has to hit a ‘Record’ button within the app, perform the task manually, and save it as a macro. The next time you need to repeat the process, it will take place automatically thanks to a saved macro.

iMacros has built-in Java, Silverlight, Flex, and Flash support, a command-line interface, image recognition, task scheduling, and batch file support. All together, it’s a highly functional free tool for testers that comes in handy during day-to-day automation.

3. Watir

Watir is a free open-source web driver built upon the WebDriver frameworks that can be run across multiple browsers. As the tool is written in Ruby, it’s not too challenging to master. The test maintenance is fairly straightforward and scripts are easy to create and update. As Ruby is a highly concise programming language – it allows the development team to create a solution that helps testers create scripts that consume less overhead.

4. EggPlant

EggPlant is an AI-driven tool that helps testers create scripts for any layer of the interface. Due to the fact that the tool is integrated with machine learning and artificial intelligence, EggPlant provides developers with predictions regarding the impact of an added feature. The list of tools includes performance monitoring, functional test models generation, and more. The solution supports test script review and parallel execution.

5. AbbotJava

AbbotJava is a tool for UI Java testing that allows testers to drive UI components both with scripts and compiled code. It’s a go-to software for examining a component state and generating user actions. Java application playback and recording are both supported.

6. TestStudio

TestStudio is one of the leading automation tools in terms of user experience and the range of features supported. The tool is integrated with project management platforms like JIRA, as well as code editors such as Visual Studio. It also supports a .NET framework. While TestStudio does not require writing tests in code, it’s recommended for testers to learn C# or VB.net in order to use the tool to its fullest extent.

7. TestComplete

TestComplete is another essential tool for automated testing that aligns well with an Agile methodology. It has a widely developed set of documentation, a wide community support forums, and multiple integrations, including one with CI. TestComplete has suites for various platforms and operating systems, which improves the flexibility and reliability of the tool.

Examples Of Automated GUI Test In Use

When conducting GUI test sprints, there are many cases QA specialists normally take into account. The list of possible scenarios is basically limitless – however, here are a few of the most common ones.

Automated GUI Testing at PFLB

At PFLB, we provide GUI testing along with other types of automated GUI testing for SMEs and big corporations across various industries. Here’s what testing at PFLBs is like:

• Each project we work on has a dedicated project manager ready to consult a business manager and answer questions. You’ll be able to get in touch with the leader of the development team anytime to stay updated on the status of the process.
• On-site visits from our leading engineer that allow the PFLB team to get a better understanding of business requirements and design a responsive testing framework;
• Full integration with your development team;
• Detailed testing reports regarding the execution results, the correspondence to key metrics, and so on. We provide our clients with explicit step-by-step testing coverage.

If you are looking forward to GUI testing a project, contact PFLB – we’ll be happy to get on board! Also, you can take a look at the full list of our performance testing services to see what else our team can help with.