Using tasks to automate regression testing of GUIs

Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) present unique chal-lenges for software testing. In this paper, we demonstrate
that a test suite originally used to test a GUI contains a large
number of unusable test cases for the modified GUI. We
present a novel technique to recreate unusable test cases by
associating meta-information (called a task) with each test
case. Tasks represent activities that can be performed by
using the software. The sequence of events in a test case
represents the actions needed to complete its associated
task. Even when changes to the GUI make test cases unus-
able, many tasks remain valid across successive GUI ver-
sions. We experimentally show that our technique is able
to automatically and efficiently regenerate a large number
of test cases.