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Resilient Automation for Dynamic UI: A Practical Guide

Published: June 10, 2025

Ever feel like your UI tests are constantly breaking thanks to updates? It's a common struggle. In this Everyday QA post, we share how we helped a client build resilient automation dynamic UI testing strategies. We'll cover common challenges like unstable UI selectors, the critical role of developer-QA communication, and some innovative solutions we use here at MuukTest.

Key Takeaways

Open communication streamlines QA: Sharing updates between development and QA teams minimizes friction and speeds up testing. Knowing which UI elements have changed helps testers focus their efforts.
Modern UIs demand adaptable testing: Dynamic UI frameworks require flexible testing strategies. Approaches like UI Automator 2 and dynamic XPath help maintain robust automated tests.
Collaboration fuels effective QA: Openly discussing challenges and working together on solutions leads to better problem-solving and outcomes for everyone involved.

Consistent Stability and Targeted Bug Resolution

Jorge Juarez and David Zarate from MuukTest reported that recent automated regression runs on new versions of a customer’s app showed no new critical bugs, a testament to the stability of the product and the effectiveness of current testing efforts.

However, the team did identify and continued to monitor a couple of intermittent issues:

Facebook Button on "Create Account" Screen: This specific bug appears to be primarily reproducible on emulators rather than real devices, suggesting it might be an environment-specific quirk rather than a core product defect.
Playlist Not Refreshing (My Playlist Section): Users, when creating a new playlist, might experience a slight delay before it appears on the home screen. While initially flagged as a bug, further investigation revealed it's likely a performance delay rather than a functional failure. The MuukTest team plans to incorporate timing buffers and potential page refresh logic into their automation scripts to account for this behavior, ensuring the automation accurately reflects the user experience without prematurely flagging it as a defect.

These discussions highlight MuukTest's meticulous approach to bug reporting, distinguishing between genuine product issues and environmental or performance-related nuances.

The Evolving Challenge of UI Selectors: A Deep Dive into Automation Resilience

A significant portion of the conversation revolved around a critical challenge faced by the automation team: frequent changes in UI selectors. This issue, stemming from both the customer’s internal development choices and updates to testing frameworks, has a direct impact on the efficiency of automated regression.

The customer’s team explained that their transition to newer UI frameworks like Compose and SwiftUI means that traditional UI element IDs, prevalent in older XML or UI Kit approaches, are no longer inherently present. The UI is now built programmatically, and while accessibility tags are added for features like voiceover, how the operating system (OS) or testing libraries (like Appium) interpret and expose these elements for automation can be inconsistent and unpredictable. This makes it challenging for MuukTest to reliably identify and interact with elements after a new build.

According to David, "It's time-consuming. We need to launch the iteration, find a discrepancy, fix it, relaunch it over and over."

To combat this, both teams are exploring solutions:

Developer Communication: The MuukTest team emphasized the immense help it would be to receive communication from the development team about changes made to specific UI modules or components. While providing a precise list of new selectors is difficult, knowing which areas of the UI have undergone significant changes would allow MuukTest to proactively focus their selector updates.
Exploring New Selector Strategies: MuukTest is investigating the adoption of UI Automator 2 syntax and more dynamic XPath strategies. This involves designing selectors that are less reliant on static IDs and more on contextual information, such as finding the "first view" or "first text" after a known element, particularly for dynamic content like song lists. This adaptive approach aims to build more robust and resilient automation.
Collaborative Investigation: Both teams committed to continued investigation. The customer will look into whether any form of code comparison or text-based search can identify changes that might impact selectors, while MuukTest will test the new selector strategies in the coming weeks.

This open dialogue exemplifies a true partnership, where both sides acknowledge the technical complexities and commit to finding innovative solutions together.

What is Resilient Test Automation?

Resilient test automation is key for modern software development. It adapts to UI changes, reducing maintenance and ensuring tests don't constantly break. This is especially important with dynamic UIs, where frequent updates can cause traditional automated tests to fail, leading to wasted time and slower releases. Think of it like this: instead of painstakingly rewriting tests every time the UI tweaks, your tests intelligently adjust, saving you precious development hours.

Self-Healing Locators: The Foundation of Resilience

Self-healing locators are essential for resilient tests. They use multiple identification methods, automatically switching if one fails. For example, if a button's ID changes, the locator might seamlessly switch to using the button's text or surrounding elements. Tools like Testim, Katalon Studio, Selenium with Healenium, and Mabl leverage this technology. Robust element identification using relative XPaths, CSS selectors, ARIA, and data attributes further strengthens test resilience. This multi-pronged approach ensures your tests stay robust even with UI changes.

AI and Machine Learning: The Next Level of Resilience

AI and machine learning are transforming test automation resilience. They power features like change detection, failure prediction, and automatic test fixing. Platforms like Testim, Mabl, Applitools, and Healenium are at the forefront of this innovation, using AI to predict potential points of failure and even suggest fixes, pushing the boundaries of what's possible in automated testing.

Organizing for Resilience: POM and Component-Based Testing

The Page Object Model (POM) and component-based testing are crucial organizational strategies. They simplify test maintenance by providing a structured approach to UI element management, making updates easier when the UI changes. By modularizing your tests, you isolate the impact of UI changes, making maintenance a breeze.

Visual Testing: Catching the Unseen

Visual testing complements traditional methods by detecting visual regressions. Tools like Applitools Eyes, Percy by BrowserStack, and Cypress with Percy specialize in identifying unintended visual changes, ensuring your UI looks exactly as expected, even after code changes.

No-Code Resilient Intelligent Automation: The Future is Here

Introducing IDA: No-Code UI Automation with LLMs

IDA, a no-code UI automation system from IBM Research, uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to empower non-programmers to automate tasks. This democratizes access to automation, making it easier for anyone to create and maintain automated tests, regardless of their coding expertise.

IDA's Approach to Resilience

IDA tackles the challenges of resilient element matching and conditional UI logic using the power of LLMs. This allows it to adapt to UI changes and handle complex automation scenarios effectively, ensuring your tests remain stable even with dynamic UI updates.

IDA in Action: Proven Success in the IPA Challenge

IDA's success in the IPA challenge demonstrates its adaptability to UI changes in real-world scenarios. This validates its effectiveness and potential to transform UI automation, showcasing its ability to handle the complexities of real-world applications.

The Broader Impact of No-Code UI Automation

No-code UI automation has the potential to significantly increase efficiency and productivity across various fields. By simplifying automation, it empowers more people to leverage its benefits, opening doors for innovation and streamlining workflows across industries.

The Rise of AI in Simplifying Complex Processes

IDA's success highlights the growing importance of AI in making complex technological processes more accessible. AI is paving the way for more user-friendly and powerful automation tools, like those offered by MuukTest, enabling businesses to achieve comprehensive test coverage efficiently and cost-effectively. This shift towards AI-driven automation is transforming how we approach software testing, making it more efficient and accessible than ever before. Learn more about how MuukTest can help you achieve complete test coverage within 90 days by visiting our customer page and exploring our pricing plans.

Charting the Future: Strategic Planning for Enhanced Collaboration

Looking ahead, the customer wants to discuss long-term strategy and new requirements for the QA partnership. This proactive step aims to align expectations, explore future enhancements to their testing processes, and ensure the collaboration remains a win-win for both companies. The goal is to prepare thoroughly, allowing the customer more time to analyze the code and propose the most effective ways to integrate QA efforts.

A Partnership Built on Adaptability and Shared Goals

The ongoing collaboration between MuukTest and the customer demonstrates the vital role of adaptability and open communication in successful software development.

By meticulously identifying and addressing bugs, collaboratively tackling the complex challenge of dynamic UI selectors, and strategically planning for future needs, both teams are ensuring the continued quality and reliability of the customer’s products. This strong partnership allows the client’s app to maintain high standards while continually evolving its features for its users.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are UI selector changes such a challenge for test automation? Frequent UI changes, especially in modern frameworks like Compose and SwiftUI, make it difficult for automated tests to reliably identify and interact with elements. Traditional static IDs are often replaced with dynamically generated identifiers, leading to test failures and increased maintenance. This requires testers to constantly update their scripts to keep up with the changes.

How does MuukTest handle the problem of changing UI selectors? MuukTest uses a multi-pronged approach. We work closely with developers to understand which parts of the UI are changing. We also explore advanced selector strategies, like using contextual information instead of static IDs, to make tests more resilient. Continuous investigation and collaboration with the client help us find the most effective solutions.

What is the benefit of close collaboration between MuukTest and its clients? Open communication and collaboration are key to successful software testing. By working closely with our clients, we gain a deeper understanding of their development process and challenges. This allows us to tailor our testing strategies to their specific needs, proactively address potential issues, and ensure a smoother, more efficient testing process. It also allows us to offer insights and recommendations for improving their overall development workflow.

What is the significance of distinguishing between bugs, environmental quirks, and performance delays? Accurate categorization of issues is crucial for efficient bug fixing. Understanding whether a problem is a true product defect, an environment-specific issue (like something only occurring on an emulator), or simply a performance delay helps prioritize development efforts and prevents wasted time on non-critical issues. This targeted approach ensures that resources are focused on fixing genuine bugs that impact the user experience.

How does MuukTest ensure its automation scripts remain effective despite UI changes and other challenges? We prioritize building resilient automation. This means creating tests that can adapt to changes in the UI, reducing the need for constant maintenance. We use various techniques, including dynamic selector strategies and close collaboration with development teams, to ensure our scripts remain robust and reliable even as the software evolves. This proactive approach minimizes disruptions to the testing process and ensures consistent, accurate results.

The MuukTest Team