Automated GUI Testing: How to Get It Right

Dayana Mayfield , Dayana is a QA engineer turned technology writer living in Milan, Italy. She's always down for a smoothie.

August 22nd, 2017

That said, automation is critical to:

1. Empower human testers to uncover more complex issues
2. Help cover quality for existing functionality
3. Provide constant, steady feedback on quality and performance

One of the trickiest aspects of any software to automate is graphical user interface (GUI) testing. That’s because user behavior is complex. The complexity of automating GUI test cases can lead QA teams to have to constantly update their scripts, not automate enough (and not the reap the benefits above) or to create overly simplistic automated scripts that aren’t valuable.

These tips will help you combat the complexity of GUI automated testing without forsaking value.

What Is Automated GUI Testing?

Automated GUI (graphical user interface) testing is a process where software tools are used to automatically test the graphical user interface of an application to ensure it functions correctly. This type of testing simulates user interactions with the application to verify that the UI elements behave as expected.

It’s considered by many as an essential part of modern software development, helping ensure that applications provide a seamless and error-free user experience.

Imagine you’re testing an e-commerce website. Users should be able to browse products, add items to their cart, and complete a purchase. To ensure everything works smoothly, you set up automated GUI tests.

Test Case: Checking the Add-to-Cart Functionality

Goal: Make sure users can add items to their cart without issues.

Automated Testing Steps:

1. Open the e-commerce website in a browser.
2. Search for a product, like “Wireless Headphones.”
3. Click on the product to view its details.
4. Click the “Add to Cart” button.
5. Go to the shopping cart page.
6. Check if the product appears in the cart.
7. Verify that the name, price, and quantity are correct.

Expected Results:

• The selected product should appear in the cart.
• The price and quantity should match what the user selected.
• The cart should update immediately after adding an item.

How This Helps:
Automating this test ensures the website works correctly every time you update it. It also saves time and reduces human error.

Why is Automated GUI Testing Needed?

Automated GUI testing ensures that your application runs smoothly and remains bug-free. It helps you catch issues early, improve efficiency, and maintain software quality. Here’s why it’s essential:

1. Saves Time and Effort

Manually testing every button, form, and menu takes too long. Automation speeds up the process. It runs tests in seconds and frees up testers for other important tasks.

2. Eliminates Human Error

Repetitive testing can lead to mistakes. Testers might miss details or forget steps. Automated testing follows precise scripts. It delivers accurate and consistent results every time.

3. Expands Test Coverage

Manual testing covers common user actions, but automation enhances test coverage by running multiple scenarios simultaneously. While edge cases are often best handled manually due to their complexity and unpredictability, automation excels at parallelizing routine tests across various configurations, ensuring broader and faster validation of expected behaviors.

4. Catches Bugs Early

Fixing issues early is easier and cheaper. Automated GUI tests identify problems before they reach users. This keeps your application reliable.

5. Maintains Stability Across Updates

Every update comes with risks. A small change can break an important feature. Automated tests check the UI after every update. This prevents unexpected failures.

6. Simulates Real User Actions

Your users click, type, scroll, and navigate through menus. Automation tools mimic these actions. They ensure the interface responds correctly under different conditions.

7. Speeds Up Regression Testing

Whenever you update your app, you need to test old features. Automated GUI testing runs these checks instantly. This makes regression testing faster and more efficient.

8. Ensures Cross-Browser and Cross-Device Compatibility

Users access your app from different browsers, operating systems, and devices. Automated tests verify that everything works everywhere. This guarantees a smooth experience for all users.

9. Boosts Productivity

Automation handles repetitive tests. Your team can focus on building new features and improving the user experience. This increases efficiency and innovation.

Automated GUI testing isn’t just helpful—it’s necessary. It saves time, reduces errors, and keeps your software running smoothly. By automating tests, you ensure a seamless experience for users.

Automated GUI Testing Examples

Automated GUI testing helps ensure a smooth and error-free user experience. It applies to many real-world scenarios where software must function correctly. Here are some common examples:

E-Commerce Checkout Process

Online stores must provide a seamless shopping experience. Automated tests check if users can browse products, add them to the cart, and complete a purchase. These tests simulate actions like applying discount codes, entering payment details, and verifying order confirmations.

Login and Authentication Testing

Web and mobile applications require secure logins. Automated tests verify login functionality by entering valid and invalid credentials. They also test multi-factor authentication and check if error messages appear when users enter incorrect information.

Banking and Payment Transactions

Banks and financial apps must process transactions accurately. Automated tests validate fund transfers, bill payments, and card transactions. They check if the system processes inputs correctly and updates account balances without errors.

Airline Booking Systems

Travel websites must handle complex booking processes. Automated tests ensure users can search for flights, select seats, enter passenger details, and make payments. They also verify that booking confirmations generate correctly.

Healthcare Patient Portals

Healthcare apps must function without errors. Automated tests check if patients can book appointments, view medical records, and request prescriptions. They also confirm that the system follows data security regulations.

Which GUI Test Cases Should be Automated?

You don’t need to automate every GUI test. In some cases, manual testing works just fine. But when speed, accuracy, and efficiency matter, automation is the better choice. Here’s when you should automate GUI testing:

• Tests That Run Frequently: If a test runs often, automate it. Login verification, form submissions, and navigation checks are common examples. Running these manually wastes time and increases the risk of human error.
• Tests That Require Multiple Inputs: Some test cases involve many data variations. For instance, testing an online payment system requires different credit card numbers, currencies, and transaction amounts. Automating these tests ensures thorough validation without manual effort.
• Tests That Check Core Functionality: Critical features must always work. Automate tests for essential actions like user authentication, checkout processes, and data saving. This helps prevent major failures that could impact users.
• Tests That Validate User Permissions: Applications with multiple user roles need careful testing. Automate tests that verify access restrictions, such as ensuring regular users can’t access admin controls. This prevents security risks.
• Tests That Must Run on Different Platforms: Your app should work across various browsers and devices. Automating cross-browser and cross-device tests ensures consistent behavior without needing manual checks on each platform.
• Stress and Load Tests: Some tests check how the system handles heavy usage. Automating stress tests helps simulate thousands of users interacting with the application at once. This ensures stability under real-world conditions.

Automated GUI Testing Approaches

Automated GUI testing uses different methods to improve accuracy and efficiency. Each approach has its strengths. The right choice depends on your application, team skills, and testing needs. Here are six common approaches:

Natural Language Processing (NLP)-Based Testing

NLP-based testing allows you to write test cases in plain English. AI-powered tools then interpret and execute them. This approach makes test automation easier, especially for non-programmers. It also reduces errors caused by complex scripting.

Record and Play

With this method, you interact with the application while a tool records your actions. Later, the tool replays those actions to verify consistency. This approach is quick and easy to use. However, frequent UI changes can break recorded scripts, requiring updates.

Model-Based Testing

This approach builds a visual or mathematical model of your application’s behavior. The tool then generates test cases from the model. Model-based testing improves test coverage. It also helps identify edge cases that manual testing might miss.

Hybrid Testing

Hybrid testing combines different automation techniques. You might use record-and-play for quick tests, code-based testing for flexibility, and image-based testing for UI validation. This approach adapts to different needs and improves test coverage.

Image-Based Testing

Instead of interacting with elements by code, this method compares screenshots. It detects UI inconsistencies and visual defects. However, small design changes may require test adjustments.

Code-Based Testing

With this approach, you write scripts to automate GUI interactions. It gives you full control over test execution. While it requires coding skills, it handles complex scenarios and scales well.

Building a GUI Test Automation Framework

A well-structured GUI test automation framework improves software reliability and speeds up testing. Follow these steps to build an efficient and maintainable framework.

1. Organize Your Test Layout

Start by structuring your test framework logically. Keep test scripts, test data, and resources in separate folders. Use clear and consistent naming conventions. A well-organized layout makes test maintenance easier and prevents confusion.

2. Explore the Application First

Before automating, test the application manually. Navigate through different screens and user flows. Identify key features, possible weak points, and common interactions. This hands-on approach helps you design better automated test cases.

3. Set Up the Right Testing Environment

Ensure that your test environment matches the production setup. Install the required tools, libraries, and dependencies. Enable logging to capture test execution details. These logs will help you troubleshoot errors quickly.

4. Start with Smoke Testing

Run smoke tests to check the application’s core functionalities. These quick tests confirm that major features work correctly. If a smoke test fails, you can fix the issue before moving to deeper testing.

5. Automate New Features Early

When developers add new features, create automated tests for them right away. Verify user interactions and ensure the UI responds correctly. Early automation prevents bugs from spreading to other parts of the application.

6. Use Assertions to Validate Results

Assertions check whether the application behaves as expected. Set clear conditions for success or failure. If the application doesn’t match expected results, the test should fail and trigger an alert.

7. Log Test Results and Generate Reports

Record every test execution, including results, timestamps, and error messages. Generate reports to track test coverage and identify problem areas. Detailed reports help teams improve software quality over time.

Automation GUI Testing Best Practices

1. Remove system functionality from GUI testing

First thing’s first: remove anything from GUI testing that isn’t actually GUI testing.

Most system critical functionality can be completely divorced from GUI. When automated scripts rely too heavily on UI elements, then they become “brittle.”

Brittleness will kill an automation suite. It’s all over as soon as someone says “We shouldn’t make that change; fixing the scripts will take too much time.” Automation should speed development up, not slow it down.

Any automated test whose script refers to the names of fields and buttons could need to be rewritten when those fields and buttons are renamed.

Clint Hoagland

One way to bypass the complications of GUI testing is to not use GUI elements in the test scripts whatsoever. Program reasonable tests with context and expected results using back-end functions directly, instead of calling upon those functions in the way that a user would.

2. Use abstractions

Using abstractions is another way to more easily maintain an automation suite of GUI tests. An abstraction takes the place of the specific details of how a test is done. It’s a form of refactoring—wherein you change code to improve it internally without altering its behavior.

An easy example of this is a file upload.

Here is a problematic script:

On the Media Library page, click the button called “New Upload”

Select the file “test.pdf”

Click the button called “Upload”

In the field called “Title” enter “My Test PDF”

In the field called “Description” enter “Single page PDF”

In this script, we’re detailing the process of the upload, meaning that if the process of the app or website changes, then this script (and countless others) need to change as well.

But we can rewrite this script to be less susceptible to change by abstracting those details:

On the Media Library page, upload “test.pdf”

On the File Details page, use the “Title” of “My Test PDF” and the “Description” of “Single page PDF”

When refactoring your scripts to include more abstractions and fewer details, first ask yourself whether that step needs to be rewritten or removed. For example, you don’t want to include the login process in every single script, but only in the appropriate cases where logging in needs to be thoroughly tested.

3. Learn from manual testing

Far from replacing manual testing, automated testing actually takes much of its learnings and development from the manual testing of a product. At its core, each manual test consists of three components:

1. The task to be performed
2. The related data needed to perform the task
3. The expected result

Using the upload example again, the task would be uploading a file; the related data would be the PDF file, and the expected result would be that the upload is allowed.

A test doesn’t have to include how to get to there—meaning how to get to the upload feature in the first place.

To keep your GUI test scripts agile, you want to program them with only the context required and nothing more. That’s why we don’t want to think in terms of navigation (which is where our mind usually goes when thinking about GUI). Rather than navigating through scripts like a user, we want to think like a manual tester.

The manual tester checks that they are in the right product area, decides how to perform a task, makes sure the environment and context are in place, and checks for the expected result.

A high-quality GUI script should be a singular event that begins with being in the right place. So rather than navigating us through an app to the right place, a script might simply begin with On the “Account Settings” Page. 

4. Rely on the right tools

Choosing the right automation tools is critical to increasing the likelihood of ROI. Any automation project should be treated like a software development project, meaning it is going to be continually reiterated upon. Automation is an active, ongoing process. So, you’ll want to choose an automation suite that works with you and your team.

At the very least, you’ll want to check for these factors:

• Easy to learn: has syntax and classes that are intuitive and don’t require complex coding so that with any organizational changes or team member handovers, the suite can be maintained
• Simple commands: with GUI automated testing especially, you’ll want a small set of simple commands (things like click and scroll up) to use when writing scripts so that the language used is forcibly standardized and stable
• Recording: to automatically write test scripts, you’ll want to choose a GUI testing tool that will record your actions and generate a script using object recognition (rather than record low-level events or rely on visuals), allowing you to review, modify, save and rerun the test
• Integrations: the biggest challenge with test automation is making use of the results, and to combat this you’ll want the tool to integrate with your existing bug tracking system in a way that you will respect and trust—not overwhelm your system with low quality, repetitive bugs

Automating GUI tests can provide continuous feedback on the user’s environment, verification of performance and functionality and comparison of repetitive test results. With the visual nature of GUI and the need for continual design improvements, the benefits of GUI automation testing can be easily overwhelmed by its fluidity. By streamlining scripts, you can protect their longevity and free up time for other quality enhancement projects.

Automated GUI Testing Tools

Automated GUI testing tools help you test user interfaces quickly and accurately. These tools simulate real user actions like clicking, typing, and navigating through an application. They ensure that buttons, forms, and menus work as expected. Here are some of the most widely used tools:

1. Selenium

Selenium is a powerful open-source tool for web automation. It supports multiple programming languages like Java, Python, and C#. You can run tests across different browsers, making cross-browser testing easier. Many developers and testers rely on Selenium because of its flexibility and wide adoption.

2. Appium

Appium is the go-to tool for mobile app testing. It automates applications on both Android and iOS. You don’t need to modify the app’s source code to test it. Appium allows you to run tests on real devices and emulators, making mobile testing seamless.

3. TestComplete

TestComplete is a commercial tool that supports desktop and web applications. It lets you write scripts in Python, JavaScript, and VBScript. If you’re not comfortable coding, you can use its record-and-playback feature to create tests quickly.

4. Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio is beginner-friendly yet powerful. It supports web, mobile, and desktop applications. You can choose between scripting and record-and-playback, making it a great choice for both new and experienced testers.

5. Ranorex

Ranorex automates testing for web, desktop, and mobile applications. It has a simple interface and strong scripting features. Teams with mixed skill levels can easily use it for GUI testing.

Using the right tool improves testing speed, reduces manual work, and increases accuracy. Choose a tool that fits your project and team needs.

Final Thoughts

Automated GUI testing helps you maintain software quality and speed up testing. It catches issues early and provides fast, reliable feedback. However, automation works best when combined with manual testing. Human testers still find the most complex and critical bugs.

To get GUI automation right, balance automation with human expertise. Automate repetitive and high-risk test cases to save time. Keep scripts simple and maintainable. Use abstractions to reduce unnecessary UI dependencies. Choose the right tools that fit your team’s needs and integrate well with your workflow.

#Want to jumpstart your testing with AI-powered test automation services? See how Testlio can help.