Challenges in UI Testing
User Interface testing involves testing the functionality of any application from the end user’s point of view.
It may or may not involve graphical elements. It essentially tests functionalities which require direct interaction with the end users.
The application undergoing testing may be robust in terms of performance, business logic handling, security etc. However, all this will be in vain if the end user does not have a favourable experience.
Hence, it is important to conduct user interface testing to ensure that besides the internal functioning, the user facing layer aka presentation layer is also properly verified and validated.
Every type of testing has its own advantages, pitfalls and challenges. In this article, we will talk about a few challenges faced while testing user interfaces.
Continuous changes in User Interface
With organizations following agile development approach, it is an obvious fact that applications evolve with every development cycle.
The user interface changes can happen due to multiple reasons like new version release, changes in requirements, changes in functionality etc. Any such changes directly or indirectly impact the UI, thus rendering the test cases vulnerable to failures. Keeping pace with these changes becomes extremely difficult.
The business stakeholders are more concerned about how the changes have been correctly incorporated and are available to their customers with every new release. This clearly indicates the need for rigorous testing efforts.
Regression testing difficulties
In continuation from the previous point, regression testing becomes a daunting task when frequent changes are there. The changes may not necessarily be in the user interface, but could be in any other interfacing element or underlying logic or data. For example, If the field length of any element changes from 15 to 10, but user interfacing element is not updated with necessary checks in place, then there will be issues while testing, depending on the test conditions applied to that particular element.
There could be multiple such scenarios, where any change in one element directly or indirectly impacts some other element. The test cases need to be updated on a regular basis to reflect every change.
There is a high probability that all possible scenarios are not covered and some bugs escape unnoticed in the build. This has a direct impact on the end user experience of the application.
Complex GUI elements
Visual representation of data, process, statistics etc is much easier to comprehend. No wonder the customers expect quick processes and visually appealing interfaces.
The data is dynamic in nature and sometimes can take time to process and present. Generating charts, diagrams, graphical representation etc makes it challenging to test such applications.
This is one such example. There are many other complex elements which make user experience much better, but also make testing a tough job.
If testing of such complex elements is not done properly, then the whole purpose of having them in place to elevate the end user experience gets defeated.
Automation efforts
Automating UI testing can be a challenging task as automation simulates end users using HTML locators. Details of challenges related to automation have been covered in our blog “Bane of Automation”.
Besides the factors mentioned in the said blog, script maintenance also becomes a herculean effort, given the fact that user interface is prone to frequent changes. Hence, choosing and implementing a right automation tool is only one part of the puzzle, the other side is to continuously maintain it.
Comments
0 comment