Random visual GUI testing: Proof of concept

Paper in proceeding, 2013

Market demands for higher quality software and shorter time-to-market delivery have resulted in a need for new automated software testing techniques. Most automated testing techniques are designed for regression testing that limit their fault finding ability to faults explicitly tested in scenarios/scripts. To overcome this limitation, companies define test processes with several test techniques, e.g. unit testing and random testing (RT). RT is a technique that can be performed manually or automatically with tools such as Fuzz, DART and Quickcheck. However, these tools operate on lower levels of system abstraction, leaving a gap for a Graphical User Interface (GUI), bitmap level, automated RT technique. In this paper we present proof of concept for Random Visual GUI testing (RVGT), a novel automated test technique that combines GUI based testing, Visual GUI Testing, with random testing. Proof of concept for RVGT is evaluated in a three phase study with results that show that RVGT is applicable for both functional and non-functional/quality requirement conformance testing. Furthermore, results from a survey performed in industry indicate that there is industrial need for the technique. These pivotal results show that further research into RVGT is warranted.