Context:

Automated testing is ubiquitous in modern software development and used to verify requirement conformance on all levels of system abstraction, including the system’s graphical user interface (GUI). GUI-based test automation, like other automation, aims to reduce the cost and time for testing compared to alternative, manual approaches. Automation has been successful in reducing costs for other forms of testing (like unit- or integration testing) in industrial practice. However, we have not yet seen the same convincing results for automated GUI-based testing, which has instead been associated with multiple technical challenges. Furthermore, the software industry has struggled with some of these challenges for more than a decade with what seems like only limited progress.

Objective:

This systematic literature review takes a longitudinal perspective on GUI test automation challenges by identifying them and then investigating why the field has been unable to mitigate them for so many years.

Method:

The review is based on a final set of 49 publications, all reporting empirical evidence from practice or industrial studies. Statements from the publications are synthesized, based on a thematic coding, into 24 challenges related to GUI test automation.

Results:

The most reported challenges were mapped chronologically and further analyzed to determine how they and their proposed solutions have evolved over time. This chronological mapping of reported challenges shows that four of them have existed for almost two decades.

Conclusion:

Based on the analysis, we discuss why the key challenges with GUI-based test automation are still present and why some will likely remain in the future. For others, we discuss possible ways of how the challenges can be addressed. Further research should focus on finding solutions to the identified technical challenges with GUI-based test automation that can be resolved or mitigated. However, in parallel, we also need to acknowledge and try to overcome non-technical challenges.

中文翻译：

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为什么GUI测试自动化仍将面临许多挑战

语境：

自动化测试在现代软件开发中无处不在，用于验证系统抽象的所有级别（包括系统的图形用户界面（GUI））的需求一致性。与其他自动化方法一样，与其他自动化方法一样，基于GUI的测试自动化旨在降低测试成本和时间。自动化已经成功地降低了工业实践中其他形式的测试（例如单元测试或集成测试）的成本。但是，对于基于GUI的自动化测试，我们还没有看到令人信服的结果，而是与多种技术挑战相关联。此外，十多年来，软件行业一直在努力应对其中一些挑战，但进展似乎有限。

客观的：

这篇系统的文献综述通过识别GUI测试自动化挑战，然后调查了为何该领域多年来未能缓解它们的原因，从纵向角度对GUI测试自动化挑战进行了研究。

方法：

审查基于最后一组49份出版物，所有出版物均报告了来自实践或工业研究的经验证据。基于主题编码，出版物中的陈述被综合到与GUI测试自动化相关的24个挑战中。

结果：

按时间顺序排列了报告最多的挑战，并对其进行了进一步分析，以确定它们及其提出的解决方案是如何随着时间而发展的。所报告挑战的时间顺序图表明，其中四个已经存在了将近二十年。

结论：

基于分析，我们讨论了为什么仍然存在基于GUI的测试自动化的关键挑战，以及为什么将来可能还会存在一些挑战。对于其他人，我们讨论了如何解决挑战的可能方法。进一步的研究应集中于通过可解决或缓解的基于GUI的测试自动化来找到已确定的技术挑战的解决方案。但是，与此同时，我们也需要承认并尝试克服非技术难题。