Companies that maintain complex software systems (fintech platforms, healthcare applications, SaaS products, or ongoing legacy modernization projects), share a common set of challenges. Each new release risks breaking functionality that once worked when seemingly unrelated code paths are touched. Deployments become stressful for engineers and worrisome for stakeholders who depend on stable, predictable releases. Development teams want to make updates faster without sacrificing reliability, defects must be detected early in the lifecycle, before customers are affected. Achieving these goals requires automated regression testing.

My gut feeling here is that complex software systems have critical functions whose usefulness is deterministic reliability. On the other end of this spectrum, interface and experience are primarily subjective and relatively non-deterministic . That is, relying on automated tests at the level of HCI, as opposed to rigorous testing by engineers and an open feedback loop with end-users, forces all humans working with these systems into a reinforcing negative feedback loop where only the squeekiest wheel is greased. This is an abstract and off the cuff reaction (without having read the entirety of this article) but, I think the point I'm attempting to make is: process and method are important so, what approaches actually lend themselves to the best outcomes for all involved?