Touchscreen Interface Tester
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Touchscreen Interface Tester BRW 07-16-2008
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Posted by BRW on July 16, 2008, 5:38 pm
A friend of mine is wanting to construct a touchscreen interface
tester - a unit that would move around a touchscreen and activate it
many thousands of times over a long period. This tests the robustness
of a touchscreen application.

An X-Y plotter with a solenoid "finger" comes to mind. Any other
ideas? Does anybody know where to get a light-duty X-Y plotter-like
device that he could easily interface to (ideally with a PC)?

Thx,

BRW

Posted by Gordon McComb on July 16, 2008, 5:57 pm
Would this really be necessary? If it's the screen he's wanting to test
that would need a mechanical apparatus, though I would assume these
screens have already been well tested in target environments. But if
it's an application interfaced to the touch screen, it seems to be that
could be tested by imitating the data going across the interface (often
just a serial stream). The application would have no way of telling the
signals apart.

The screen should not permit invalid data sequences and never transmit
them, but you could assume those might be a possibility, and write a
trap in the application anyway. You could also manually sit there for a
half hour and poke at it yourself, capturing the data. Mix this in with
randomized data sequences.

Otherwise I think you're going to have to build something, and it won't
be cheap and it won't be very fast.

-- Gordon


BRW wrote:
> A friend of mine is wanting to construct a touchscreen interface
> tester - a unit that would move around a touchscreen and activate it
> many thousands of times over a long period. This tests the robustness
> of a touchscreen application.
>
> An X-Y plotter with a solenoid "finger" comes to mind. Any other
> ideas? Does anybody know where to get a light-duty X-Y plotter-like
> device that he could easily interface to (ideally with a PC)?

Posted by BRW on July 16, 2008, 8:43 pm
wrote:
> Would this really be necessary? If it's the screen he's wanting to test
> that would need a mechanical apparatus, though I would assume these
> screens have already been well tested in target environments. But if
> it's an application interfaced to the touch screen, it seems to be that
> could be tested by imitating the data going across the interface (often
> just a serial stream). The application would have no way of telling the
> signals apart.
> The screen should not permit invalid data sequences and never transmit
> them, but you could assume those might be a possibility, and write a
> trap in the application anyway. You could also manually sit there for a
> half hour and poke at it yourself, capturing the data. Mix this in with
> randomized data sequences.
> Otherwise I think you're going to have to build something, and it won't
> be cheap and it won't be very fast.
> -- Gordon

Thanks for the reply Gordon.

The application he's testing is written explicitly for the touchscreen
using COTS software that interfaces with the COTS touchscreen system.
There is no easily accessable "port" (neither software nor hardware)
between the actual touchscreen and the application. He doesn't want a
partial test of a hacked system. What is desired is a true "end-to-
end" test from the user's perspective. It's the only way to be sure
of the robustness of the application as a whole.

I'm glad you mentioned speed since I didn't cover that. It doesn't
have to be fast. One touchscreen press every 3-5 seconds would be
fine. The idea would be to run the automated test all night or even
several days.

BRW

Posted by Si Ballenger on July 17, 2008, 1:34 am
On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:43:40 -0700 (PDT), BRW


>The application he's testing is written explicitly for the touchscreen
>using COTS software that interfaces with the COTS touchscreen system.
>There is no easily accessable "port" (neither software nor hardware)
>between the actual touchscreen and the application. He doesn't want a
>partial test of a hacked system. What is desired is a true "end-to-
>end" test from the user's perspective. It's the only way to be sure
>of the robustness of the application as a whole.
>I'm glad you mentioned speed since I didn't cover that. It doesn't
>have to be fast. One touchscreen press every 3-5 seconds would be
>fine. The idea would be to run the automated test all night or even
>several days.
>BRW

Make an x/y bridge/trolly operated by two servos (use drawer
rails and rollers from lowes/homedepot) with a third servo
mounted on the trolly to do the screen touching (use a servo
setup similar to below). Probably all components needed for
~$100. From my tinkering, I got ~425 discrete positions from a
standard servo with ~190 deg rotation range.

http://www.geocities.com/zoomkat/pix/servotest.jpg


Posted by Gordon McComb on July 17, 2008, 1:53 am
Since you'd have to buy the hardware, then invest time and energy to
program it, why not find a college kid or two willing to do this for
$8-10 an hour. If you're really wanting a user's perspective for testing
it needs to be human, or else a very expensive and complicated test rig
that will simulate human responses - mistakes in positioning, too light
or too forceful of touches, and everything else a mechanical simulation
probably won't do.

At $10 an hour you can hire a couple of kids and get 30-40 hours of
testing. Splurge and buy them some Pepsi and pizza. Make that part of
the test - how your buddy's software does with a messy screen!

Not to take away a job for our robot friends, but some things are still
better (cheaper) done by humans. Robots are generally only
cost-effective over the long term, say simulating months or years or
testing.

-- Gordon


BRW wrote:
> Thanks for the reply Gordon.
>
> The application he's testing is written explicitly for the touchscreen
> using COTS software that interfaces with the COTS touchscreen system.
> There is no easily accessable "port" (neither software nor hardware)
> between the actual touchscreen and the application. He doesn't want a
> partial test of a hacked system. What is desired is a true "end-to-
> end" test from the user's perspective. It's the only way to be sure
> of the robustness of the application as a whole.
>
> I'm glad you mentioned speed since I didn't cover that. It doesn't
> have to be fast. One touchscreen press every 3-5 seconds would be
> fine. The idea would be to run the automated test all night or even
> several days.

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