The video store revisited yet again: Adventures in GUI acceptance testing

Abstract

Acceptance testing for graphical user interfaces has long been recognised as a hard problem. At the same time, a full suite of acceptance tests written by the Onsite Customer has been a key principle of XP since it began [1]. It seems, however, that practice has lagged behind theory, with many practitioners still reporting weak or no acceptance testing. At XP2003, we presented our successes with text-based acceptance testing of a batch program[2]. In the past year we have extended this approach to apply to a user interface. We have developed an approach based on simulation of user actions via a record/replay layer between the application and the GUI library, generating a high-level script that functions as a use-case scenario, and using our text-based approach for verification of correctness. We believe this is an approach to GUI acceptance testing which is both customer- and developer-friendly.