The document provides guidance on building a mobile application that is easy to automate for testing purposes. It recommends selecting common technologies to avoid risks. The main challenges are identifying UI elements, for which it discusses using properties like text, id, and accessibility labels. It also stresses making navigation and operations stateless for reliability, and avoiding customized, complex, or proprietary UI elements that are hard to automate. Synchronization is important to ensure elements are ready to receive events before interacting with them.

1. How to Build a Mobile Application
that is Easy to Automate?
Jun 2016

2. HOW TO BUILD A MOBILE APPLICATION THAT
IS EASY TO AUTOMATE?
 Select Technology
 Object identification background and challenges
 Xpath / Indexs
 Properties and considerations in Object identification
 Application navigation
 UI component, Layout and Others, Synchronization

3. The technology you use has a big impact on the automation process.
Using common technology removes risks.
There are 3 types of UI objects:
• Native objects – using the OS native objects. The native objects can be created directly or
using some kind of framework (like Xamarin).
• Web objects- run inside WebView (like Phonegap)
• Proprietary objects- new set of UI elements (like Adobe Flash)
Avoid technologies that are not model based
TRY TO AVOID THIS OPTION
SELECTED TECHNOLOGY

4. The main challenge in mobile automation is identifying UI elements.
• Automation tool sees UI as tree of nodes
• One element can contain other elements
• Every node has properties
• Common properties: text, id, hint, accessibility label, placeholder
A query needs to be created in order to identify an element.
CHALLENGE #1: OBJECT IDENTIFICATION

5. Syntax:
Xpath=//*[@text=‘OK’]
//- scan the UI tree from the root.
*- find any node (don’t care about the node name)
[]- that (condition)
@- the property (in this case text)
Xpath is a very common technology for identifying UI objects.
XPath

6. Index
What if we have more than one element that match the quarry?
• The tool will usually will select the first element in the UI
(in some tools it will be visual order, other tools will use node hierarchy order).
• Relaying your identification on index is not a good sign for your automation
robastness

7. Things to consider when using properties to identify objects:
• Property visibility – text / placeholder is visible to the user
• Uniqueness – id is unique for web
• Multilingual support
• Multi-platform – text / class / placeholder …
• Not dynamic
• Easy to query
• Fast to query – isVisable sometime can be slow to query
CONSIDERATIONS IN OBJECT IDENTIFICATION

8. Field name OS Pros. Cons.
AccessibilityIdentify/
ContentDescription
Android/iOS
 Usually unique
 Not dynamic
 Support multi lingual
 Needs development attention / awareness
Id Web
 Unique
 Fast to query
 In some technologies it is auto generated and
can change in new versions
Id Android
 Very command
 Effortless
 Multilingual
 Not Unique
Hint/Placeholder Android/iOS
 Visible
 Effortless
 Does not change with the
field content
 Inapplicable for multi lingual apps
Class Android/iOS  Effortless  Will probably require index
AccessibilityLabel iOS
 Effortless
 Good option for images
 Dynamic with the text
 Inapplicable for multi lingual apps
Text
Android/iOS/
Web
 Visible
 Unique in many cases
 Effortless
 Can be dynamic
 Inapplicable for multi lingual apps
CONSIDERATIONS IN OBJECT IDENTIFICATION

9. For Automation to be successful the operation that is build should be stateless.
Try to avoid unnecessary state full operations.
Stateless = executes any operation regardless of current state/page
• Example for a stateless operation: top menu button
• Example for a state-full operation: login process, first user flow
APPLICATION NAVIGATION SHOULD BE EASY

10. Proprietary UI elements- try to avoid using customized UI elements
UI COMPONENT, LAYOUT AND OTHERS

11. Don’t tweak the UI object events.
UI COMPONENT, LAYOUT AND OTHERS

12. Avoid using complex layers.
UI COMPONENT, LAYOUT AND OTHERS

13. The problem: clicking on an element that is not ready to receive the event
UI Synchronization

14. • Provide API on the server side for common operation: (Create User / Account)
• Manage common tests resource
Test configuration