Visual testing, also known as user interface (UI) testing in software development is how developers ensure that an application appears to the end-user as it was originally intended.
From the description of the tag or feels like ui-testing
is the more appropriate name, but that isn't what you are going for. I ended editing the description to include that visual testing is a form, of subset of, UI testing.
At first I was a little confused about the mention of UI testing. The term "UI testing" conjures up a number of other related terms, in my opinion:
- Manual testing/verification
- A specialization of unit testing focused on testing user interface components
- A specialization of integration testing focused on user interface components
Basically testing a user interface, in general, at any level of the architecture.
Yesterday I thought I found an existing tag called "ui-testing", but I couldn't find it today. I ended up editing the visual-testing tag description this morning without knowing I could no longer find the "ui-testing" tag:
Visual testing, a form of user interface (UI) testing in software development, is how developers ensure that an application appears to the end-user as it was originally intended. This could involve manual verification using your eyes or programmatically interpreting images of application screens.
I added emphasis to the parts I changed. I think this relates visual testing to UI testing without causing too much overlap. Hopefully people will realize that not all UI testing is visual testing, but that visual testing is a specialization of UI testing.
Honestly, now that I can no longer find the "ui-testing" tag on this site, I'm reconsidering my tag description edit.
I just feel that visual testing is more explicit and clear, but saying it is also known as "UI testing" makes it a little more ambiguous.