Visual Test Automation using Selenium

Visual Testing is the method of verifying that the application’s GUI appears correctly to its users. Most of the people say visual testing is hard to automate. Given the number of web browsers, operating systems, screen resolutions, responsive design, internationalization, etc.) the nature of visual testing can be complex. But with existing open source and commercial solutions, this complexity is manageable, making it easier to automate than it once was, since verification with traditional automated functional testing tools can be very challenging.

It can be easily achieved by integrating Selenium with Applitools. This talk mainly focuses on verifying the application’s graphical user interfaces (GUI) and finding the visual bugs using Applitools. It is very helpful for all sites having graphical functionalities like (charts, graph, dashboards etc).  Verify that the GUI appears correctly across all devices & browsers. The nature of visual testing can be complex. But with existing open source and commercial solutions, this complexity is manageable, making it easier to automate than it once was. And the payoff is well worth the effort.

Take pressure off manual QA: increase coverage, test faster & more accurately.  Reduce maintenance efforts: automatically propagate changes across execution environments. Release faster, with confidence & flawless.

Applitools Eyes Express captures the screen you want to test, and compares it to a baseline image – instantly, with a single click. No extra testing code necessary, no boring error logs.

For example, a single automated visual test will look at a page and assert that every element on it has rendered correctly. Effectively checking hundreds of things and telling you if any of them are out of place. This will occur every time the test is run, and it can be scaled to each browser, operating system, and screen resolution you care about.

Put another way, one automated visual test is worth hundreds of assertions. And if done in the service of an iterative development workflow, then you’re one giant leap closer.

Each of these tools follows some variation of the following work flow:

1. Drive the application under test (AUT) and take a screenshot
2. Compare the screenshot with an initial “baseline” image
3. Report the differences
4. Update the baseline as needed