Automated test maintenance consumes up to 44% of development time, according to the Capgemini World Quality Report. This ongoing effort impacts QA team productivity and increases operational costs.
In agile environments—where interfaces change frequently and releases are continuous—keeping tests up to date becomes even more challenging.
This is where AAT (Appian Automated Testing) makes a difference: it significantly reduces maintenance effort while improving team collaboration through natural-language tests and a more sustainable approach to automation.
The Problem with Traditional Automated Test Maintenance
Whenever a feature is modified, business logic changes, or the GUI is updated, automated tests must be adjusted. With traditional approaches, this requires editing technical code, relying on testing experts, and risking new errors or false positives.
Numerous academic studies confirm the high cost and fragility of GUI test maintenance.
Academic Research on GUI Test Fragility & Maintenance
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Alégroth, Feldt & Kolström (Siemens & Saab):
Identified 13 factors affecting maintenance cost, such as tester experience and test complexity. They concluded that frequent, incremental maintenance is far more cost-effective than large, infrequent updates. -
Coppola, Ardito & Torchiano in hybrid mobile apps:
Found that 20% of layout-based tests and 30% of visual tests required modification after GUI changes. On average, 3–4% of test methods became fragile with each release. -
Dobslaw, Feldt et al.:
Demonstrated that tool choice (Selenium, EyeAutomate, etc.) significantly affects maintenance cost, with ROI often dominated by the initial implementation effort and subsequent fragility. -
Software Languages Lab:
Even minor GUI changes can require updating 30–70% of existing test scripts.
Why This Is a Problem
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Longer response times: every change requires manual editing.
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Outdated tests: quickly become ineffective and fail to reflect the real system state.
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Technical dependence: only specialised staff can maintain complex scripts.
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Reduced collaboration: business analysts and other stakeholders are excluded due to technical barriers.
How AAT Reduces Maintenance Effort and Increases Efficiency
AAT takes a different approach: tests are written and maintained in natural language, making them readable and editable by everyone in the team.
Key Advantages of AAT in Test Maintenance
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Up to 40% less maintenance effort by removing reliance on brittle code.
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Faster updates in response to changing requirements or UI modifications.
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60% fewer false positives/negatives, due to direct alignment with business rules.
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Improved collaboration: analysts, QA, developers, and business stakeholders can all contribute.
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Living documentation: test cases become readable, accessible artefacts for the entire team.
“Thanks to AAT, we reduced the time spent on test maintenance by over 30% and improved communication between QA and the business.” QA Lead
How AAT Addresses the Challenges Highlighted by Academic Studies
AAT directly tackles the issues identified in years of research on GUI test fragility:
Natural-language tests
Everyone on the team can read and update tests without technical expertise, reducing dependence on automation specialists.
Reduced technical debt
No complex, brittle scripts make tests less prone to failure after GUI changes.
Incremental updates
Tests evolve with the product smoothly, allowing frequent small updates instead of large, risky “big-bang” refactors.
Collaboration and shared ownership
Maintenance responsibility is distributed across the team, not limited to QA engineers.
Living documentation
The test suite becomes a single source of truth about system behaviour, accessible and understandable to all stakeholders.
ROI: What Does Manual Test Maintenance Really Cost?
According to Gartner, manual test maintenance can account for up to 20% of total development costs.
AAT improves ROI by:
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accelerating test updates,
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reducing production errors,
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decreasing the need for highly specialised staff,
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integrating with CI/CD pipelines to keep tests up to date automatically.
Gartner also reports that over 70% of QA teams consider test maintenance one of the main blockers to agile, continuous delivery.
AAT removes this bottleneck with a sustainable, collaborative approach.
Conclusion: Why AAT Is a Smart Choice for Modern Teams
The evidence is clear:
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GUI test maintenance is costly,
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traditional frameworks generate constant fragility,
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even no-code tools reduce but do not eliminate maintenance effort.
AAT offers a mature and sustainable alternative—less technical, more collaborative, and designed to keep pace with agile teams.
To measure the real impact in your organisation, start tracking:
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hours spent on maintenance,
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test failures due to visual changes,
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frequency of updates required per release.
Interested in seeing how AAT can reduce your maintenance workload?
Book a personalised demo and we can help you estimate ROI based on your current maintenance effort.
How does your team manage test maintenance?
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