Investigating the adoption and maintenance of web GUI testing: Insights from GitHub repositories

IF 4.3 2区计算机科学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Information and Software Technology Pub Date : 2025-10-17 DOI:10.1016/j.infsof.2025.107928

Sergio Di Meglio , Luigi Libero Lucio Starace , Valeria Pontillo , Ruben Opdebeeck , Coen De Roover , Sergio Di Martino

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Context:

Web GUI testing is a quality assessment practice aimed at evaluating the functionality of web applications from the perspective of its end users. While prior studies have explored the technical challenges of automated Web GUI testing, fewer works have explored how this practice is applied in real-world web apps.

Objective:

This study aims to investigate the adoption, characteristics, and maintenance of automated web GUI testing practices in open-source web applications, focusing on identifying trends and providing actionable insights for researchers and practitioners.

Method:

We conducted a large-scale empirical analysis of 472 web applications on the GitHub platform, developed in Java, JavaScript, Python, and TypeScript. These projects use popular browser automation frameworks like Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, and Puppeteer. The study involved examining project characteristics and analyzing the co-evolution and maintenance of automated web GUI tests over time.

Result:

Our findings empirically document automated web GUI testing adoption patterns in open-source projects, providing insights into the practical drivers behind both initial framework adoption and migration between different testing frameworks. Projects incorporating these tests generally show higher community engagement and consistent maintenance efforts. The analysis reveals that Web GUI tests tend to co-evolve with the underlying applications, reflecting their integration into the development lifecycle.

Conclusion:

The study provides valuable insights into the prevalence and maintenance of Web GUI testing, highlighting practical implications for improving testing practices. Our findings can guide further research on the matter and support practitioners in enhancing their testing strategies.

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调查web GUI测试的采用和维护：来自GitHub存储库的见解

上下文：Web GUI测试是一种质量评估实践，旨在从最终用户的角度评估Web应用程序的功能。虽然之前的研究已经探索了自动化Web GUI测试的技术挑战，但很少有作品探索了如何将这种实践应用于现实世界的Web应用程序。目的：本研究旨在调查开源web应用程序中自动化web GUI测试实践的采用，特征和维护，重点是确定趋势并为研究人员和从业者提供可操作的见解。方法：对GitHub平台上使用Java、JavaScript、Python和TypeScript开发的472个web应用程序进行大规模实证分析。这些项目使用流行的浏览器自动化框架，如Selenium、剧作家、Cypress和Puppeteer。该研究包括检查项目特征，分析随着时间的推移自动web GUI测试的共同演变和维护。结果：我们的发现以经验记录了开源项目中自动化web GUI测试采用模式，提供了对初始框架采用和不同测试框架之间迁移背后的实际驱动因素的见解。包含这些测试的项目通常显示出更高的社区参与度和一致的维护工作。分析表明，Web GUI测试倾向于与底层应用程序共同发展，反映了它们与开发生命周期的集成。结论：该研究为Web GUI测试的流行和维护提供了有价值的见解，突出了改进测试实践的实际意义。我们的发现可以指导进一步的研究，并支持从业者加强他们的测试策略。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Information and Software Technology 工程技术-计算机：软件工程

CiteScore

9.10

自引率

7.70%

发文量

164

审稿时长

9.6 weeks

期刊介绍： Information and Software Technology is the international archival journal focusing on research and experience that contributes to the improvement of software development practices. The journal''s scope includes methods and techniques to better engineer software and manage its development. Articles submitted for review should have a clear component of software engineering or address ways to improve the engineering and management of software development. Areas covered by the journal include: • Software management, quality and metrics, • Software processes, • Software architecture, modelling, specification, design and programming • Functional and non-functional software requirements • Software testing and verification & validation • Empirical studies of all aspects of engineering and managing software development Short Communications is a new section dedicated to short papers addressing new ideas, controversial opinions, "Negative" results and much more. Read the Guide for authors for more information. The journal encourages and welcomes submissions of systematic literature studies (reviews and maps) within the scope of the journal. Information and Software Technology is the premiere outlet for systematic literature studies in software engineering.