title: Automated GUI Testing: Meeting Us Halfway
body: <p>I've been tasked with developing a system for automated GUI testing and I could use some advice. As luck would have it, we are in the midst of a major redesign of our GUI and the developers doing the work are open to making their code more friendly to automation. My problem is that I'm not sure what to ask them to add. Whatever hooks are added can't impact the functionality, appearance or security of the interface and shouldn't have a noticeable impact on performance. Other than that, the sky's the limit!</p>
  
  <p>The application in question is a web-based Java app accessed via AJAX. Most of the existing features are coded using jsp, Javascript and a little bit of Flash 8. The next wave of features will be done using the <a href="http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/" rel="noreferrer">YUI Javascript library</a>. I'm pretty much settled on <a href="http://seleniumhq.org/" rel="noreferrer">Selenium</a> as a test tool because of its flexibility and price tag (free). Major point: I'm aiming for test-reusability and ease-of-maintenance. My preference is to write code that detects, validates and exercises the page elements rather than use a record-and-playback system for test development.</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone provide some guidance as to what hooks could be placed in the code or some best practices to make test development easier and the tests themselves more robust?</p>