Lowering electrolyzer capital costs and increasing material durability are key efforts toward furthering the commercial penetration of PEM electrolysis technology. This work focuses on bipolar plate and porous transport media materials, typically consisting of a titanium alloy coated with a protective thin-film of Pt, Au, or Ir. The titanium alloy serves as a corrosion-resistant base material and the coating material is selected with the purpose of delaying titanium oxidation that leads to increasing contact resistance and performance decline during operation. Potential alternative, lower-cost materials and coatings exist and/or could be developed. To avoid time, equipment, and labor intensive in-situ durability testing, accelerated high-throughput screening methods are desirable and explored in this work.. The explored ex-situ testing methodologies involve the preparation of coated material samples which are used as oxygen evolution electrodes. The materials are submersed in liquid electrolyte and degradation stressors such as temperature, pH, and potential are directly controlled. By varying each stressor independently, the influence that each has on the rate of degradation can be quantified. Such an approach may ultimately be useful in translating ex-situ results toward predicting in-situ performance. Periodic measurement of contact resistance and coating thickness during durability testing are also used toward this end. We further developed the use of time-lapse microscopy monitoring and analysis for our ex-situ testing setup. This technique allows identification and comparison of distinct corrosion modes and enables visual observations to be related to electrochemical durability data, which can improve its interpretation. We will first present results that have guided our methodology development, in which electrode surface preparation and mounting variants were evaluated using a model system of sputtered Pt coatings on Ti coupons. With improved electrode preparation, we then evaluate some common Pt deposition techniques that include evaporation, sputtering, and electrodeposition. We also make a direct comparison between sputtered Pt and Ir coatings while using time-lapse microscopy to identify the corrosion modes of each. Coatings of Pt show a progression of yellowing, blistering, and peeling while Ir corrodes via darkening and dissolution. By processing the time-lapse microscopy to determine the change in apparent active area with time, we show that performance decline trends closely with the loss of active area. Some discrepancy at the beginning and end of the durability test have yet to be explained and additional analyses of the time-lapse data are ongoing. We will also present results of work in progress that includes investigation of Pt and Ir coating thickness, adhesion layers, and post-deposition annealing.