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Towards a pattern language for model-based GUI testing

ABSTRACT

Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) have become popular as they appear in everydays' software. GUIs have become an ideal way of interacting with computer programs, making the software friendlier to its users. GUIs have grown, and so has the usage of UI Patterns featured in GUIs. UI Patterns are recurring solutions to solve common GUI design problems. We developed the notion of UI Test Patterns that, are able to test different implementations of UI Patterns. Therefore, we created a new methodology called Pattern-Based GUI Testing (PBGT) that aims at systematizing and automating the GUI testing process. PBGT samples the input space using UI Test Patterns, which provide a reusable and configurable test strategy, in order to test a GUI that was implemented using a set of UI Patterns. In this paper we present three UI Test Patterns: Login, Master/Detail and Sort.

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