It took a couple of subroutines to test this form and changes to the form would be easily accommodated. A capture and playback approach would be tedious beyond possibility and would effective block the tests keeping up with form changes. Web page object manipulation does require knowing how a web page is constructed, but is much more flexible and powerful than other approaches to automating web page tests. InternetQA's use of Microsoft technology, the availability of online object model and scripting documentation from Microsoft, and the focusing on one piece of web application functionality at a time puts this method of automated testing fully within the reach of smart, but untrained, QA personnel. For a sobering look at test automation by James Bach see Test Automation Snake Oil .
Automation is a great idea.
To make it a good investment, as well, the secret is to think about testing first and automation second. If testing is a means to the end of understanding the quality of the software, automation is just a means to a means. You wouldn't know it from the advertisements, but it's only one of many strategies that support effective software testing. InternetQA suggests a careful approach to web test automation. Use tools like Linkbot where possible for the most automated testing for the least effort.