How is Graphical User Interface (GUI) testing done?

The term GUI testing is a self justifying term and states that it is a testing that tests the graphical user interface of the software system or application against its specifications and requirements mentioned in the specifications documents.

This article is all about the testing of some of the aspects of a graphical user interface. All the aspects of a graphical user interface are tested using a whole lot of testing techniques.

The test cases are generated by a test designer who has all the knowledge about the application and the tests are designed as such that they cover all the functionality of the system.

1. Steps for Testing of the Text Box
- Firstly, the requirements of the text box are identified and the default values of the text box and the button are tested without any text in the text box.

- The second step is the checking of the NULL condition in which it is checked that whether or not a text of NULL value can be saved.

- Thirdly, the space condition is checked which ensures that a text box can save a space character.

- Fourth, the boundary value condition is checked in which the minimum and maximum text holding value of the text box is tested.

2. Steps for Testing of the Radio Buttons

- Radio buttons are the buttons that are used in making a selection in the lists that contains options that mutually exclusive and only one option has to be selected.

- In the radio button testing it is tested that whether or not clicking on one of the options deselects the other one.

3. Steps for Testing of the Command Buttons

- The working of the command button i.e., whether or not it is following the command which has been evoked. The execution of the command is also tested.

4. steps for Testing of the Aesthetic Conditions

Aesthetic conditions regarding the colour of the background, resizing of the screen, color of the field prompts, font of the text, spelling of the prompts etc are tested using appropriate testing methodologies.

5. Testing of the validation conditions
This testing tests the validation process of the GUI using various white box testing techniques.

6. Steps for Testing of the Usability Conditions

- Usability conditions of the GUI of the applications are tested by the users since a direct input is obtained from the users and is focussed up on the capacity of the product to match with the standards specified by the user.

- Usability refers to the ease of use of any software artefact and it gives a measure of the ease with which the interaction between the user and the application takes place.

- Testing the usability conditions often helps the developers to understand the needs of the customers and helps in focussing the whole development process towards the needs of the customers.

- The rate of the sales and the task completion increases and the number of enquiries in the call center is also reduced.

- Usability is also an effective technique to increase the experience of the end user making it easier to understand and more intuitive.

- The usability testing can also be carried out by the expert evaluators instead of making users do that. The below mentioned aspects are tested:
(a) Performance
(b) User friendliness
(c) Efficiency
(d) Visual design
(e) Consistency

7. Steps for Testing of Data Integrity Conditions

- This era is marked by the increasing demands for the accountability and mobility and thus data integrity conditions need to be tested.

- This is done by using different white box testing techniques for different conditions.

8. Steps for Testing of the Data field checks and Alpha field checks

It is tested whether or not the data fields accept the data of their specified type.

What are different tips for testing GUI on smart devices?

WHAT ARE SMART DEVICES?
- Smart devices are most popularity gaining devices in today’s world.
- Though being a small cordless electronic device, it is capable of serving us many purposes.
- It is highly portable and can be connected anywhere to a network like 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi etc.
- You can have a voice and video communication and browse internet.
- Smart devices in the coming years are going to outnumber many other devices like cell phones and laptops.
- These devices exhibit quite appraisable artificial intelligence and ubiquitous computing factors.

But, what makes these smart deices so popular among users except their features?
It is their user friendly GUI (graphical user interface).
- The abstraction feature of the OOP is employed here in hiding the interactions between the user and the computer.
- These devices are able to optimize themselves according to the environment in which they operate.
- To some extent these devices are self governed.

GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE ON SMART DEVICES
- The GUI of these devices is vigorously tested to maintain the standard.
- GUIs are a bridge between the software system and the user.
- When agitated, the interface responds to the user’s activity like click or mouse movement.
- GUI makes it easy to implement the software code and also for users to interact with the device.
- GUIs form a major percentage of the program code.
- A lot of time is devoted in developing graphical user interface and testing it. - GUIs account for the usability of the device.
- The current GUI testing methodologies are mostly manual and ad hoc in nature.
- The tools used for GUI testing record the test case execution and captures screen shots during testing.
- The recorded sessions are played again and the input test data is manipulated. - This methodology requires a large effort.

Here we are going to discuss some tips regarding GUI testing of smart devices.

- The effectiveness of GUI testing depends on the ability of the tester to develop new interactions between the user and the software.
- The best advice for graphical user testing will be to use an automated test generating tool.
- This will save you much time and effort.
- Before using an automated test generator, you should code for all possible interactions.

Even though the automated test generator provides a great help, there are many decisions that it misses out.

To compensate for this, the better option is to release the beta copy of the GUI and let the users test it and give you the feedback. More the number of testers, more effective will be the testing.

Here we are listing some tips for making GUI testing more effective:

- Having a defined coverage criterion will make it easy for you to decide what to test first.

- Prepare documentation for the test cases that have to be executed. In this documentation, define the test input data to be used for each test case. The input test data should be related to the requirements specifications of the software system.

- Compare the actual output with the expected output and decide what can be done to get the desired output if the two don’t match.

- After you have predicted the outputs for the test cases, execute them one by one and verify the output.

- Most importantly ask yourself questions like:

a) “how to improve the interaction of the user and the system?”
b) “how to make it easier for the user to access various features of the device through GUI”, “what are the possible where bugs can be found?”
c) “is this GUI compatible with the environment in which it is to be used?”
d) “what are the features that should be compulsorily incorporated in to the GUI?”.