UI (Specifically FLEX) automation testing

Question

I was wondering whether the community utilizes automation tests to the extent of UI? Is there some common best practices for testing UI? Also - the product I'm working on is flex-based. I would love to get ideas how to test it. Mainly I want to test:

1. Data appears on the screen as expected
2. Field validations (for example: field is not a number) are working as expected
3. Alignment of fields

And so on