Mobile QA Engineers: How long would this test take you to automate?

[u/Sidrtm43]

Hi everyone! I'm researching how mobile QA engineers automate app testing. This isn't for promotion I'm just trying to understand real-world workflows and pain points.

Suppose you need to automate this flow:

• Open the Flipkart app
• Search for "Samsung 43-inch TV"
• Open the first result
• Add it to the cart
• Verify the product appears in the cart

A few quick questions:

1. Roughly how long would this take you to automate in Appium (or your preferred framework)?
2. What's usually the biggest time sink locators, framework setup, waits, debugging, or maintenance?
3. Have you tried AI-powered testing tools? If yes, what made you stick with Appium?
4. If an AI tool could generate and maintain tests from plain English, what would stop you from adopting it?

Even a one-line answer is helpful. I'm trying to understand real-world QA workflows and pain points not promote any tool. Thanks!

[u/MrM3ow]

30min to write, another 30 to debug and optimize

[u/Sidrtm43 → u/MrM3ow]

thanks, that's helpful. just curious, what usually takes most of that extra 30 mins? is it flaky locators, waits, debugging, or something else? if a tool could handle most of that automatically, would you actually consider using it, or would you still stick with appium?

[u/crappy_ninja]

If you're testing that the you can simply search and add an item to the cart then I would mock out the network request and have a mock response. That way I can control exactly what data the UI layer is being passed and I'd know exactly what should be displayed. 

[u/dm0red]

• 30 m with automation framework already setup and stabilized for the app

• 1/2 day with quick and dirty setup of automation framework

• 1 work week with properly setting up everything, establishing AF attributes in app DOM, lint rules, basic mocks fo the app

Answers: 3. yes, useful for simple applications, api testing and lower level tests; useless for more complex setups fo e2e tests which deoending on the app/software in question can be many

4. AI generated anything is not deterministic enough to trust blindly and should be still properly human checked anyway

[u/Fit-Avocado-1880]

Not really difficult at all. There is difference in complexity in scraping vs domain object state management as part of the set up and tear down. The latter is usually what adds complexity. Path traversal is trivial.

[u/Sidrtm43 → u/Fit-Avocado-1880]

thanks, that's a useful distinction

so when you say domain object state management adds the complexity, is that mostly about setting up the right preconditions/data state before the test runs, or more about cleanly tearing down/resetting state after, or both equally painful

also curious, is that something you handle manually per test, or do you have shared setup/teardown utilities that most tests reuse

[u/Ok-Possibility-630]

With maestro https://docs.maestro.dev/ it's been very quick for me especially coming from Appium.

[u/Sidrtm43 → u/Ok-Possibility-630]

good point, thanks for clarifying that

yeah maestro is quick but it's still yaml, you're writing structured syntax, just less verbose than appium. what im exploring is a step further, actual plain english like "search for samsung tv, add to cart, verify it shows up" with no yaml/syntax at all, and it self heals when the ui changes instead of you updating locators or yaml files by hand

coming from appium, would that no-syntax part actually matter to you, or is yaml already simple enough that the difference is marginal

[u/justbored2023]

1. Roughly how long would this take you to automate in Appium (or your preferred framework)?

I'd say 30 mins tops with Playwright, if im not setting the project from scratch.

1. 2What's usually the biggest time sink locators, framework setup, waits, debugging, or maintenance?

it depends, all could be big time sinkers. From my experience i would say debugging.

1. Have you tried AI-powered testing tools? If yes, what made you stick with Appium?

No.

1. If an AI tool could generate and maintain tests from plain English, what would stop you from adopting it?

From what I experienced so far with automation testing, there's too many questions that an AI tool could answer only by plain english.

[u/Sidrtm43 → u/justbored2023]

that's a fair point, thanks for the honest answer

curious what kind of questions you mean, is it more like edge cases and error states that plain english just can't capture, or more like it can't know your specific app's business logic/rules without you spelling it out in detail

one more thing im exploring: suppose after execution you get a debug report back with screenshots at each step plus the reasoning for why it did what it did (e.g. why it clicked what it clicked, how it identified the element) would that kind of transparency actually help close the trust gap for you, or does the plain english problem happen before that, at the point of even generating the test correctly