Bots are the new Apps – Part 2

We communicate through images, movement, sounds, text, symbols, objects…

Bots are evolving so fast! Last October I wrote about how bots are the new apps and shared my thoughts about why bots and about the opportunities they create. Over the past few months, interest has grown and we as a community have iterated on our approaches to build bots. For some, the hype has gotten to a point where everyone wants one, but do we really understand them or the efforts that are required to build them.

So far, my initial thoughts have stood the test of time. 

The following are observations, experiences and thoughts, about what we need to consider when we set out to build a successful bot. 

Bots are defined by an exceptional user experience! And not by the amount of Artificial Intelligence (AI) or by Natural Language Processing (NLP) that is used to build them.

A bot is successful if users actually use it! This is important, because we must build our bots with meaningful telemetry, logging and data collection mechanisms that empower us to measure, validate and iterate. This data forms a foundation that we can use to hypothesize and prioritize our efforts. Then through A/B testing we confirm that we solve the user’s need in the quickest and easiest way possible. This in itself directly impacts our business model and pushes us to grow the end-user consumption and shift our business model to selling through microtransactions. In other words, a bot helps users be successful.

Adding A UI Control To A UIMap Without Adding A UI Action

Whether you are working with one or many UIMaps the best way to add a UI Control to a UI Control Map , without adding a UI Action, is to right click on the UIMap to which you want to add the control and select
“Edit With Coded UI Test Builder”.

This will open the Coded UI Test Builder

Be sure that the application under test is running.

 

Once the application under test is running, click and drag the bull’s-eye to the desired control. The selected control will be identified by a blue border.

Releasing the left mouse button over the desired control will bring up a new window containing information about the control.

Clicking on the “UI Control Map” tab to the left of this new window will give you more options.

Amongst the options presented to you, is a button that allows you to add the control to your
UI Control Map without adding a new UI Action to the UIMap.

Click on the first icon:
“Add control to UI Control Map”

    
Once the control is added the checkmark located next to the control will become black. To save this control to the
UI Control Map click on the 4th icon located in the Coded UI Test Builder “Generate Code”

  A window will popup with a note mentioning that no Method Name is required because no UI Action will be generated.

The last step, clicking “Generate” will generate the elements required to include the newly mapped control in the UIMap.

The UI Control will available from code once the project gets built.

 

 

 

Get the code @ https://github.com/brisebois/Coded.UI.Test.Demoware

Building Maintainable Coded UI Tests (CUIT)

The following example, will be using Coded UI Tests (CUIT) and Visual Studio 2012 Premium to test the login window for a small WPF application.

The Login Test Application is quite simple and composed of two WPF windows. The sole purpose of the first window is to create and show the  Login window.

The Login window is composed of a user name, a password (clear text), a login button and an error message.

The first step to building maintainable Coded UI Tests is to build a UIMap per application screen. The goal here is to keep the UIMaps as simple as possible. It’s strongly recommended to regularly prune UIMaps by removing unused controls from the UI Control Map and unused UI Actions. Doing this will greatly simplify future modifications and additions to the UIMap.

Get the code @ https://github.com/brisebois/Coded.UI.Test.Demoware