Selenium - Go Web Driver!

After a long hard search for a unit testing tool for our new web UI using GWT (Smart GWT) i settled for Selenium.
It was introduced to me by a friend (VH) and I am very much convinced that it will suit our needs. It is not always advantageous to automate Unit Testing when developing UI besides what the Selenium website had mention here (To Automate or not To Automate ?). An automated unit test for a UI component of an application will not be able to pick up on the following factors[1] that makes a UI component a success.
1. Accessibility
- relative ease of navigation.
2. Responsiveness
- The user interface is clear to the users and they can do what they wanted to do.
This includes the ergonomic elements of the UI such as color, shape, sound and font size
3. Efficiency
- The least number of steps and time that a users take to do what they wanted to do.
4. Comprehensibility
- The user interface is easily understood by the users with the minimum amount of effort.


Obviously usability characteristics mentioned above for a User Interface component can not be tested by an automated test case. It will take a manual test or a human to determine this. So if you want to automate testing for User Interface components you can use Selenium for testing if the User Interface has the right elements/fields in the page and verify if those fields does contain the expected value for those fields. A right blend of manual test for usability and automated test to check element would be the proper approach to improve the quality of a User interface being developed.








[1] K.Naik, Software Testing and Quality Assurance: Theory and Practice. Hoboken, NJ : Wiley & Sons,2008,pp.202.

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