CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2009/wiki2 10 28

GUI testing frameworks

GUI is a graphical user interface [1] that allows users to interact with the system. The user has more natural approach to the applications and feels more in control of the system. Today, every application provides GUI support and its easy to use feature is making it popular among users. The process of testing the user interface to test if it meets its specification is called GUI testing [2].

Challenges in GUI testing

Testing Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) is a difficult task because GUI possesses a large number of states that are to be tested; the input space is extremely large due to different permutations of inputs and events and also there are complex GUI dependencies, which may exist.

Input domain:Testing graphical user interface requires different permutations of input. This not only increases the complexity but also the input size domain. These inputs are users interactions or events while output could be an event or some graphical object [8].Also, one state of GUI may depend on many other states. This further increases the difficulty in GUI testing.
Sequences: -
Regression testing:
Maintainability
Event driven nature: Users have full control while using graphical user interface. This leads to many user inputs and multiple windows to be opened. Also, there could be many events like user clicking textbox field or a button and since user has many available options, large number of actions and inputs can be expected. The framework has to take care of these events. Thus, it’s tough for tester to write test case for every possible event [3].

Current GUI testing frameworks

Capture/Replay framework

Capture/Replay is the most popular technique in GUI testing domain. In this technique the capture tool generates a script that records every interaction of tester with the application GUI. This file is later replayed by the replay component of the software [6]. However, this process of GUI testing is resource intensive and requires significant human intervention [6].

Pitfalls of Capture/Replay technique

Capture/Replay technique relies on test engineer to provide all possible GUI interactions. Automation of this technique requires programmer to code to cover all possible decision points in the GUI [7]. Thus, it’s a very time consuming, requires human intervention and there are high chances of missing important decision points while supporting automation [7].

References

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_user_interface
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI_software_testing
[3] http://www.gerrardconsulting.com/GUI/TestGui.html
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GUI_testing_tools
[5] http://www.geocities.com/xtremetesting/TestingDictionary.html#S
[6] GUI Ripping: Reverse Engineering of Graphical User Interfaces for Testing, Ishan Banerjee, Adithya Nagarajan, and Atif Memon
[7] http://www.cs.umd.edu/~atif/papers/MemonIEEEComputer2002.pdf
[8] Lee J. White, "Regression Testing of GUI Event Interactions," icsm, pp.350, 12th International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM'96), 1996