UI Testing Tools: Features and Top Tools for Faster UI Testing

A robust and efficient UI testing process is more crucial now than ever, with so many display variations to account for. As the bridge between you and your users, the UI of your application is critical to ensuring a smooth and fun experience.

That’s where UI testing tools come into play. They allow you to validate functionality and accessibility so your users don’t get held up. So we have a list of features you’ll want and some of the best tools available.

What To Look For in UI Testing Tools

Various automated UI testing tools are available to developers today, each bringing its unique flavor and approach to testing. However, that doesn’t mean all are created equal, with some offering more (or fewer) features than others. So we’ve got a list of what we think are some key features you should look for when picking UI testing tools.

UI Test Script Creation

Many tools will allow you to create custom scripts to test your UI. These scripts can mimic user behavior and interactions – like clicking buttons, navigating the UI, and inputting data. Some tools record and translate your inputs to a script or require you to write your own scripts. How a tool handles test scripting can significantly impact your team and how they create or execute UI testing.

Cross-Browser and Cross-Platform Compatibility

No two browsers are alike (even if Chromium powers many). Ensuring your software is flawless regardless of user browser choice requires using a UI testing tool that can test multiple browsers and platforms is the best way to accomplish this. Without it, you can seriously compromise your user experience or encounter major compatibility options.

Object Recognition and Locators

Many UI testing tools can locate and identify UI elements on your page, giving you deeper access to testing. These tools enable your teams to test the finer details of your UI without extensively written test suites, saving them time and effort. Plus, with this attention to detail, your QA teams can ensure every part of your UI functions as intended.

Test Reporting and Analysis

Data is critical to ensuring your product ships as polished as possible. Most UI testing tools will offer some form of reporting the results of your tests and ways to analyze that data to give you meaningful results. These features should include pass/fail statuses, performance metrics, and error logging as a minimum.

The Best UI Testing Tools

While there are many UI testing tools, there’s no way we could list every single one out there. Instead, we’ve hand-picked the four best UI testing tools available today and why you may want to consider them for your testing processes.

Selenium

It’s hard to have any list of testing tools without including Selenium, the biggest name within automated testing tools. It’s the oldest in the biz, and it’s been the backbone of testing for quite a long time. It supports nearly all languages and major browsers and can integrate into almost any stack. While it offers almost all you’d ever want out of a testing tool, unfortunately, it doesn’t come with any built-in reporting features, meaning you’ll need an additional third-party tool to analyze and quantify your test results.

Cypress

Cypress offers a unique take compared to many other testing tools: it tests with an actual browser instead of a headless version. Simulate user actions where headless testing may fail or have unique issues. However, this also leads to its biggest downfall: all your tests must be written in JavaScript, limiting teams who may need to become more familiar with it.

Cucumber

Cucumber has a strong focus on Behavior-Driven Development, giving them a unique approach to testing. Unfortunately, that also means your team must adopt this practice, and using their unique Gherkin language to write tests makes Cucumber significantly more effort to integrate.

Katalon

If you are looking for a tool to run your tests and create, manage, and provide results, Katalon is it. Their tool hits all the marks and even includes options for self-healing your tests, adding visual testing methods, and working cross-platform. However, similar to Cucumber, it relies on its custom scripting language (Groovy), which means there’s a slight learning curve to writing tests.

Boost Your UI Testing Tool with Launchable

UI testing tools can streamline critical elements including scripts and compatibility, but they still don’t solve delayed releases due to bloated test suites. Running every UI test every time is not efficient. Launchable helps UI testing tools improve the efficiency and effectiveness of test execution by selectively running a subset of tests instead of running the entire test suite. 

Using Predictive Test Selection to determine which tests are most likely to fail or provide valuable information based on historical data and other factors, Launchable gets feedback to you faster.

Launchable quickly integrates with your existing Selenium, Cypress, and Appium test suite through your existing pipeline script and the Launchable CLI. 

Once integrated Launchable gets to work:

1. UI Testing Insights: Once integrated, Launchable starts collecting data about your test suite execution. It gathers information about which tests pass, fail, and their execution times. This data is used to build a predictive model that determines the likelihood of test failures in the future.

2. Test Selection: With the collected data and predictive model, Launchable can intelligently select a subset of tests to run based on various factors. It analyzes factors like code changes, test history, and execution patterns to identify the tests most likely to fail or provide helpful feedback. This allows for more targeted and efficient testing.

3. Test Execution: Launchable provides a command-line interface or API that you can use to trigger the test execution process. Instead of running the entire test suite, Launchable dynamically selects and executes a subset of tests based on the predictions and recommendations. It optimizes the test execution by prioritizing tests that are likely to uncover issues or provide valuable information.

4. Feedback and Iteration: Launchable collects feedback from the test execution and updates its predictive model based on the actual outcomes. This feedback loop helps improve the accuracy of future predictions, ensuring that the most relevant tests are selected for execution.

Save time and resources with Launchable by executing only your necessary UI tests, reducing the overall test execution time, and focusing on areas that are more likely to have issues.