How to automate testing of graphical user interfaces?
Abstract
This lecture discusses strengths and weaknesses of commercially available Capture-and-Replay GUI testing tools (CR-Tools) and presents a pragmatic and economic approach for testing Graphical User Interfaces using such tools. The results presented were developed within the ESSI Process Improvement Experiment (PIE) 24306 [EU1], [EU2] in 1997/98 at imbus GmbH, Germany [im1].
Today’s software systems usually feature Graphical User Interfaces (GUI’s). Because of the varied possibilities for user interaction and the number of control elements (buttons, pull-down menus, toolbars, etc.) available with GUI’s, their testing is extremely time-consuming and costly. Manual testing of GUI’s is labor-intensive, frequently monotonous, and not well liked by software engineers or software testers. A promising remedy is offered by automation , and several tools for computer-based testing of GUI’s are already commercially available.
