Implementation and evaluation of a tool for translating Visual to Layout-based android tests

Context: Modern mobile GUI test tools are classified as first generation (coordinate based), second generation (layout based) or third generation (visual). All of them have different benefits and drawbacks, which could be leveraged through automated translation from one generation to another one. Changing device or some graphical aspects of the application could result in failure of visual scripts but not layout based ones. Visual scripts could be easily regenerated having available layout based ones. Goal: The aim of this work is to implement a tool that can automatically translate third generation test scripts in the EyeAutomate syntax to second generation Espresso test cases. Method: A software project in Java was developed to achieve the proposed goal and then an experiment was performed, to evaluate the success rate of the translated scripts. The experiment consisted in translating EyeAutomate visual test scripts, developed for two open source mobile applications (PassAndroid and OmniNotes), into Espresso layout based scripts. Results: The translation proved feasible with the proposed tool architecture, and the evaluation yielded a quite high success rate on the considered software objects (58 out of 60 test cases successfully translated). Conclusion: The study demonstrated that the translation from third generation (visual) to second generation (layout-based) test scripts is feasible in the mobile domain, and that translation is able to reduce the required effort for generating Layout-based test cases. More work is however required to extend the proposed tool and evaluate it in industrial practice, as well as to measure its capability of reducing fragility and maintenance effort for Layout-based test suites.