It is the assumption that GUI testing is much harder to pull off correctly than data-driven testing that many teams have given up on the approach, but the Geoff Bache, writer of the “Making GUI testing productive and Agile” advised teams to rethink the user interface testing and make the approach productive.

Combining domain-language descriptions of use cases with recorded user interface action will do help to get confidence and make easy maintenance. In order to make recorded test cases easier to understand, Bache advise teams to record actions and assign domain names to such recorded actions. And he also advises verification by logging and inspecting textual log outputs of the system to validate a function was performed correctly.

By allowing teams to record domain activities, combing them into readable scripts and saving detect behavior changes, teams can inspect changes and decide whether the changes were expected or not, furthermore, it can allow teams to create new tests required.

Source:http://www.onestoptesting.com/testing-articles/automated-testing/details/rethinking-user-interface-test-automation-366.asp