Abstract: In a method for automatically identifying at least one control element in an application view of an application a) at least one recognition pattern for structural and/or graphical features of the at least one control element is pre-stored in an object template, b) a recognition means generates structural and/or graphical data from the application view and examines the data according to the at least one recognition pattern, c) in dependence on the examination a measure for the recognition certainty of the at least one recognition pattern is determined, and d) in dependence on the obtained recognition certainty the status of the at least one control element is determined as “identified” or “not identified”.