What is GUI Testing? Types & Best Practices

There are GUI testing tools that allow users to create test cases by writing code. The obvious potential downside of this approach is that they either require you to take developers away from coding and have them write test cases or teach your testers and QA professionals to code. In addition, the same problems of test fragility exist as they are dealing with UI elements that can change frequently. If your application code changes, then your tests will also need to change.

Functional testing, for instance, examines whether a website button performs its intended action upon clicking. UI testing identifies usability issues early in development, reducing costs and the project’s go-live timeline. By improving user engagement and user experience, and ensuring cross-browser compatibility via comprehensive testing, UI testing helps prevent customer churn and negative reviews. Hotjar (that’s us 👋) is a best-in-class option, helping teams analyze user behavior with heatmaps, session recordings, surveys, user feedback, and interviews. Use Hotjar for a deeper understanding of how users interact with your UI to create data-backed testing strategies and identify areas of improvement. Then, let someone in your team—perhaps a QA analyst or engineer—walk through the application for manual tests, mimicking user behavior and checking for inconsistencies or issues.

Tools and Frameworks for Automated UI Testing

When it comes to GUI/UI testing, keep in mind that the user interface is the part of the application the user sees and interacts with. If you give your user a poor UI, they won’t care an iota if your app’s underlying API works like a charm. Not caring about your application’s UI is a sure way to transform your customers into former customers. In a world where first impressions matter, UI testing plays a pivotal role in ensuring that these impressions are not only positive but lasting.

In the same way, there might be some overlap of concerns between GUI testing and E2E testing, which is a cause for further misunderstandings. Finally, there’s debate on whether GUI testing is something you should be doing in the first place. Many people claim GUI tests aren’t worth the trouble because they’re very fragile.

Example GUI Testing Test Cases

Its utility in mobile UI testing lies in its ability to ensure that mobile apps provide a seamless user experience across different devices and operating systems. Cross-platform UI testing ensures an application’s UI functions consistently and effectively across various operating systems and platforms. It recognizes that users access applications on different devices, such as Windows PCs, macOS computers, Android smartphones, and iOS devices, each with its own unique characteristics and behaviors. This testing approach examines how the application adapts to different screen sizes, resolutions, input methods (e.g., touchscreens, keyboards), and platform-specific UI guidelines.

Next, execute the test cases either manually by interacting with the GUI components or by using automated GUI testing tools specifically designed for GUI testing. During this process, check for any bugs or issues such as misaligned elements, broken links, or inconsistent styles. Performing GUI testing involves several steps to ensure the graphical user interface of an application works correctly and is user-friendly. By employing these various GUI testing techniques, testers can ensure that the application’s user interface is reliable, user-friendly, and performs well under different conditions. Selenium is an open-source automation tool that simulates user interactions and verifies whether the interface behaves as expected.

Performance Components

During manual UI testing, testers follow predefined test scripts or test scenarios that outline specific interactions with the application’s UI elements. These interactions can include clicking buttons, filling out forms, navigating menus, and verifying data inputs and outputs. Testers also engage in exploratory testing, where they freely explore the application to uncover unexpected issues, usability problems, or edge cases that may not be covered in scripted tests. UI prototyping and design software enable designers to create, test, and iterate user interface concepts. By simulating user interactions via these tools, designers can identify and address usability issues early in the software development stage.

By having a clear picture of the application’s purpose, you can form a strong foundation for your GUI Testing process. It’s vital that software applications are accessible to everyone, including individuals with disabilities. GUI Testing helps ensure the application is compatible with assistive technologies and can be navigated using a keyboard, for example. Another vital role GUI Testing plays is in delivering a positive user experience. The software may work perfectly fine, but if the colors are harsh, the fonts are unreadable, or the navigation is complex, users might not enjoy using the application or even abandon it altogether.

Software Testing MCQ

Automated testing excels at repetitive tasks and can swiftly execute a large number of tests, making it ideal for regression testing where the same tests need to be run every time a change is made. It also reduces the risk of human error and can run tests in various environments and configurations. However, it cannot fully replace manual testing as it lacks the subjective judgement and creative problem-solving capabilities of a human tester. In the realm of GUI Testing, two prominent techniques that come to the forefront are Manual Testing and Automation testing.

Accessibility testing ensures that all users (including most disabled persons) get entrance and interact with software with its maximum possibility. Accessibility of text and labels, image contrast ratio, navigations, and more. This testing aims to remove barriers to communicating with users who face problems with poorly designed UI.

It supports a wide array of platforms including web, mobile, and desktop applications. TestComplete’s record-and-playback feature makes it easy to create automated tests without needing extensive programming skills. When testing graphical user interfaces, there are a few main types you should know about. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) allows users to interact with computers using graphical icons and visual elements like buttons, menus, and icons. Instead of typing commands (using interface like Command Line Interface (CLI)), users can click on images and text on the screen to perform tasks.

But in a current testing strategy, manual testing still plays an important role. Precisely talking about GUI testing, the manual test engineer could have more subjective facets of the interface, like its look and feel and usability. Eggplant is a tool focused on intelligent, AI-driven test automation. It uses image recognition technology to interact with the application just as an end-user would. Eggplant can test any technology on any device, allowing for a highly flexible approach to GUI testing. Some of the challenges we face while performing GUI Testing to ensure a functional and user-friendly interface are as follows.

Types of GUI testing

You don’t just want to know that the car can move forward, turn, and stop. You want to feel how smoothly it accelerates, how comfortably it turns, and how responsive gui testing the brakes are. Similarly, manual testing provides nuanced insights about the look and feel of the software and how it responds to human interactions.

• To facilitate this critical aspect of quality assurance, a plethora of tools and frameworks have emerged, each offering unique features and capabilities.
• The primary goal of UI testing is to verify that the visual elements, layout, navigation, and user interactions within the application meet specified requirements and work as intended.
• UI testing is also used to ascertain if the visual and auditory aspects of the website or app are pleasing and capable of keeping the user interested.
• During manual UI testing, testers follow predefined test scripts or test scenarios that outline specific interactions with the application’s UI elements.
• Functional UI testing focuses on evaluating the functionality of a user interface (UI) within an application or software system.