I agree with narayanshrawagi. In the project i'm working, we used Send Keys & Send key events to interact with the application. I feel this is the best method to interact with applications, when compared to Mainframe Spy Method. (Small Application Modeller, Easier to Maintain)
However, when coming to certification perspective, this is not the case, as there are many emulators & ways to interact with each of these might be different. I suppose, ATK might provide a good practice to you.