When Should We Automate the User Interface in an Agile Environment?

Many misunderstand automation in the context of agile. Picking up a user interface test tool and automating from the word go is never going to work. Automation is often associated directly to UI tests but in an agile environment, automation refers to the whole test strategy. One of our primary goals in agile automation is to develop automated unit tests that will help us monitor the pulse of our project. From there we can look at developing integration tests, coupling together groups of unit tests, or we can look straight to UI automation. UI automation allows us to do both integration and system testing.

In an agile environment we have to look at the real return on investment when deciding what and how we automate in terms of the UI.

Examining the following factors may make this task easier:

1. Risk - A business or safety critical application is always a candidate. Use the other factors to assess the correct moment to automate. Low business impact applications should really be avoided unless work flows are simple.

2. Maturity/Stability - If the web application is still in primary development stages then there will be lots of changes to the UI. Sometimes it is better to wait for a Beta release before beginning UI automation. At this point there will usually be a lower frequency of change or less impacting changes. Waiting until this point saves a lot of time, and reduces the maintenance overhead.

3. Resource - Automation is labour intensive. If you can only devote a small amount of time to UI automation then you are probably not going to have success. Time block an automation project if necessary, it will bring benefit.

4. Change Index - Web applications with a high change index usually require the largest amount of maintenance. Keeping up with a site that has constantly changing layout or content can kill an automation project.

5. Complexity - Large complex systems that use a host of differing technologies, and contain work flows that cross these technologies, should be avoided. Unless, that is, you have the necessary resources and tools to combat this.

6. Technology - If you don't have well supported UI automation tools such as QuickTest Pro or Selenium, or the expertise to use the ones you have got, then your automation project could extend far beyond the original plan. The problem of not having expertise in your automation applications, or even in automation, is that you could find yourself with a very brittle framework that requires constant maintenance, increasing the cost and burden of automation.