Mobile Locator Strategies

Locator strategy directly affects test stability and performance.

• Poor locator -> Flaky tests
• Good locator -> Stable tests

Recommended Order

Accessibility ID (Best Practice)

driver.find_element(:accessibility_id, "login_button")

• Fast
• Stable
• Cross-platform

ID / Resource ID

driver.find_element(:id, "com.app:id/loginBtn")

• Very reliable for Android

XPath (Last Resort)

//android.widget.Button[@text='Login']

• Slow
• Fragile
• Breaks easily after UI changes

Best Practice

• Ask developers to add accessibility IDs
• Avoid XPath whenever possible

This dramatically reduces flaky tests.