Graphical User Interface (GUI) testing

GUI Testing - Introduction

Many test automation tools provide record and playback features that allow users to interactively record user actions and replay them back any number of times, comparing actual results to those expected. The advantage of this approach is that it requires little or no software development.

A variation on this type of tool is for testing of web sites. Here, the "interface" is the web page. This type of tool also requires little or no software development. However, such a framework utilizes entirely different techniques because it is reading html instead of observing window events.

Another variation is scriptless test automation that does not use record and playback, but instead builds a model of the application under test and then enables the tester to create test cases by simply editing in test parameters and conditions. This requires no scripting skills, but has all the power and flexibility of a scripted approach. Test-case maintenance is easy, as there is no code to maintain and as the application under test changes the software objects can simply be re-learned or added. It can be applied to any GUI-based software application.

GUI – What and Why?

In computing, a graphical user interface (GUI, commonly pronounced gooey) is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as Mobiles, Portable media players, etc.

A GUI represents the information and actions available to a user through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation, as opposed to text-based interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation. The actions are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements.

The term GUI is restricted to the scope of two-dimensional display screens with display resolutions able to describe generic information, in the tradition of the computer science research at the PARC (Palo Alto Research Center).