Automated Testing Interview Question:

Tell me what are Pros and Cons of automating tests at UI layer?

Submitted by: Administrator

Pros

UI automated tests execute in a way that simulates user interacting with the system. So it is very good for validating user journeys and flows
Can cover end-to-end flows that communicate with 3rd party systems
Because tests are run against the system, they can be demoed to the customer who can understand what tests are run
Can catch high severity or show stopper bugs
Can check UI functionality where it is not possible to test otherwise

Cons

UI automated tests can be very brittle (i.e. fail due to UI changes even though functionality hasn't changed)
Slow feedback to the team. Execution is slow as you have to wait for the system to launch and connections with 3rd party system can take a long time
Limitation on what can be checked from the UI. There are some information that are not present from the UI
Because tests are slow from UI, we can't have a lot of tests running against the UI
Can be time consuming to construct automated test scripts for the UI
Usually have to depend on a 3rd party tool or vendor for UI testing
Submitted by: Administrator