Your UI tests passed yesterday; nothing major changed. Today, half the suite is red. This scenario might have happened to you previously or is something that you are facing while reading this article.
Maybe the problem is in the tools we are using? But after switching tools once or twice, the problem usually stays the same.
In this article, let’s break down why this keeps happening and what actually works in practice.
UI Tests Target the Most Unstable Layer of Your System
The UI is the fastest-changing part of any application. As they evolve with updates to page structure, text labels, positioning, and more, the UI tests become increasingly difficult to manage.
A small, harmless UI change that doesn’t affect users can invalidate dozens of tests. The application still works, but your tests don’t. This isn’t a failure of automation; it’s a mismatch between what’s changing and what you’re testing.
Flaky Tests Are Usually Deterministic Failures in Disguise
Most flakiness has very real causes, such as async UI updates that aren’t fully awaited, Network calls that finish more slowly, Animation and transition interference, Background jobs or feature flags that alter UI state, and more.
Adding retries may reduce some causes or noise, but it doesn’t fix the root problem. It only hides instability and makes failures harder to debug.
Test Data and Environments Drift Over Time
UI tests don't work/operate in isolation. They depend on various factors such as backend services, Databases, Feature flags, and External APIs, among others.
As environments evolve, test data becomes inconsistent. A feature that worked properly yesterday may not exist today. From the UI’s perspective, everything looks broken, but the real issue is environment drift, not UI behavior.
UI Tests Are Often Used for the Wrong Purpose
Many teams try to validate every aspect of their application through the UI, business logic, edge cases, data consistency, and error handling, leading to slow and costly test suites that are hard to debug, leaving UI tests best suited for answering the crucial question of whether a real user can successfully complete a critical flow.
The Hidden Cost: Slow Feedback and Lost Trust
As UI test suites grow:
- CI pipelines slow down
- Developers rerun tests locally less often
- Failing tests get ignored or muted
Eventually, teams stop trusting test results altogether. At that point, teams start questioning the value of testing itself rather than their strategy.
How High-Performing Teams Reduce UI Test Failures
Teams with stable automation setups usually do a few things consistently:
- Keep UI tests minimal and focused on core user journeys
- Move most logic and validation to the API and integration tests
- Design UI tests as smoke tests
- Stabilize test data and isolate dependencies where possible
- Use of trusted UI testing or automation tools to make their job easier and time saving
UI Tests Aren’t Broken, Your Strategy Is
UI automation fails when it’s asked to do too much. When UI tests are treated as the final safety net, not the primary testing layer, they stop breaking every sprint and start delivering what they were meant to.
To make your UI testing strategies more efficient, strong and trustworthy, we highly recommend you try KushoAI to test your UIs within minutes using our AI Agent.
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