Testability vs. Automatability: Why Most Automation Efforts Fail Before They Begin-Part4

If you are new here read part1 , part2 , part3 here. Why Third-Party Widgets Break Automation and What to Do Instead At some point in every automation effort, teams run into the same wall. The application itself may be reasonably automatable, but as soon as a workflow crosses into a third-party widget such as payments, analytics, identity providers, ads, or captchas, automation becomes brittle, slow, or outright impossible. The usual response is to push harder. More selectors. More waits. More retries. Occasionally, even custom browser hacks. For a while, the tests pass. Then the widget changes, the environment behaves differently, or an anti-automation measure kicks in, and the entire suite destabilizes again. The problem is not a lack of skill or tooling. It is a misunderstanding of what UI automation is meant to validate and where its responsibility should end. The Myth of Full UI Coverage The idea that every user-visible interaction must be automated through the UI is deeply ingrai