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This paper performs a visual comparative analysis of 50 software testing tools across four programming languages to understand how they display test results. The study identifies common interface elements, output formats, and color usage patterns in both command-line and graphical user interfaces. The findings offer actionable insights for developers of software testing tools to improve the clarity and effectiveness of test result visualizations.
Software testing tools share surprisingly consistent visual patterns, offering a blueprint for designing more intuitive and informative testing interfaces.
Software testing is a fundamental process of software development, and prior work has shown that visualizations of test results support testers'decision-making. However, Human-Computer Interaction research on software testing has yet to explore and understand the shared interface elements and patterns in visualization of testing outputs. To address this, we conducted a visual comparative analysis of the output of 50 software testing tools and harnesses (44 with CLI output, 6 with GUI output) across four popular programming languages. Our analysis reveals the common interface elements in software testing tools, how these tools display and visualize test results, as well as the specific make-up of the output. Our findings provide insight on how visual testing output is formatted and how colour is used across both CLI and GUI environments, identifying trends that can be applied by developers of testing tools.
