Quality assurance and testing are usually associated with testing an app’s functionality. Still, it is equally essential to ensure that apps match the design provided and meet customer expectations.
When interacting with an app, users first pay attention to its appearance. They usually start by examining its design, feel, and ease of interaction with each element on the page. Who will be interested in a product with a section of the home page that overlaps or has spelling errors in the content? If the interface doesn’t look good and the user feels uncomfortable with it, it won’t encourage further use of your software product.
User interface testing is essential because an untested interface can waste the project budget. To avoid these problems, you must ensure that your project’s user interface is thoroughly tested.
In simple terms, user interface testing is about ensuring two conditions:
– How the application handles user actions performed with the mouse, keyboard, and other input devices
– Whether visual elements (buttons, links, text boxes, images, etc.) are displayed correctly and function as intended.
User interface design determines how customers interact with an application or website and the level of experience they receive. User interface testing should therefore be an integral part of the job of QA engineers.
They prevent interface failures by ensuring that all elements work together. For best results, our QA engineers compile a checklist of all possible tests to ensure that all cases are covered.
A typical UI test checklist includes the following:
1. Font test (font type and size)
2. Consistency checking (colors and visual elements).
3. Check the behavior of interactive elements (do buttons, clicks, hovering, dragging, etc., work as intended?).
4. Check the space (indents, borders, margins).
5. Check that the page content matches the design (readable font, color, correct text alignment).
6. Check the page in all standard resolutions (all page layouts are consistent and flawless across devices, ensuring that user interface elements adapt and display correctly at different sizes).
7. Check the layout (make sure the sections do not overlap).
8. Check that the displayed images are not blurred
Of course, full-fledged testing is impossible without the use of special tools.
There are many applications and methods to enhance user interface testing.
Our QA engineers recommend using the following UI testing tools:
1. PixelPerfect (a handy tool for Google Chrome to compare the current version with the provided design).
2. Dimensions (to check the spacing of content).
3. Dev Tools (indispensable helper: colors, font (size, type), padding, and more).
4. Color picker (allows you to define the color of an element you depend on)
5. Light Snapshot (a quick preview of your screen)
6. Material. Io Color Tool ( allows you to select the color you want among many shades and helps you determine the percentage of the background-color combination in it)
It would be a big misconception to think we don’t need to create test documentation to test the UI. At Axon, we use checklists for smoke testing and individual test cases: we check and specify what to look for (e.g., table: border-radius 6px, pad 20px, margin shadow).
The source of the comparison is in the form of thumbnails from the Invision application, where we can check elements using Inspect.
Once a mismatch is detected in the UI, the QA engineer creates a problem report. In this case, all page-specific fixes should be grouped in a single issue.
These are the most common problems in user interface testing:
1. Browser errors
If the application is only tested in the Chrome browser, this can detect user interface errors in browsers (Safari, Firefox, etc.).
2. Broken custom elements
Buttons or links that do not work.
3. Font size mismatches
Incorrect upper/lower case, inconsistent words/letters, spelling and grammatical errors, text errors in images – all these problems can potentially confuse end-users.
4. Interface errors
Typical interface errors are insufficient image quality, inconsistency, or incompatibility with mobile devices.
5. Usability errors
Users have difficulty accessing the essential features of the app.
A helpful tip for testing the user interface
If you need to test the color change of a button or link in different states, DevTools provides a great feature. Open the Elements tab and select the Toggle element state. This makes it possible to force toggle the other forms of elements such as: active, hover, focus, and: visited.
Detailed testing of the UI will ensure that each element is working and looking the way it should. Ensuring that the interface works correctly, looks good, and is easy to use and navigate is essential. Most users won’t worry about how well your code works or how clean it is. But they will worry about the appearance of your application. Make sure that UI testing is part of your testing strategy.