What is manual testing?
100% automation testing is not possible
There are two ways for software teams to carry out tests on their developed software.
Through automating test scenarios using frameworks and libraries. We covered some of this in our “what is unit testing?” article.
Through a human manually executing test cases from a test plan.
Modern advances in technology have made automation frameworks and libraries more available and easier to use for software teams. It would be normal to assume that manually testing is obsolete. This however is not true.
This article will explain what manual testing is, how to do it and, why we need it.
What is manual testing?
Manual testing is the process of manually testing a software application to identify the bugs, issues, and defects in the software application. Manual software testing is the most primitive technique of all testing types and it helps to find critical bugs in the software application.
The tester plays the role of an end-user and they use most of the application’s features to ensure correct behavior. To guarantee the completeness of testing, the tester often follows a written test plan that leads them through a set of important test cases.
Usually, manual testing is carried out by a professional involved in software testing. However, even a novice can do it without any knowledge of any particular tool. Even a student, who has a basic understanding of the application or testing of a system, can perform manual testing.
How to do manual testing
Testers analyze whether or not there are differences in the observed and expected output of a software application; any differences found are outlined as defects. Thereafter, the software developers need to fix these defects and the software application can be retested.
Software manual testers plan and implement test cases for all the core features of a software application while also generating test reports manually.
Below are a set of example steps a tester may go through to perform manual testing:
Understand the requirements and expected functionality of the software application that will be tested.
Draft test cases that cover all the requirements and expectations.
Review the test cases with the software developers and client (if applicable).
Execute the test cases on the software application.
Report any defects that are identified.
Once the defects are fixed, execute the test cases again to ensure they are fixed.
Testing requires high analytical skills and can be challenging at times, especially for larger and more complex software applications.
Manual testing benefits
Manual testing is less extensive and has a smaller immediate cost when compared to automated testing. There are no software tools used to set up and execute the test cases.
Humans observe user interfaces and judge better than automated tools. The basic usability and look & feel of a software application can be better evaluated by humans. Humans can do better justice of validation of a software application from a user experience perspective.
Manual verification always gives a broader perspective of a software application. As the human mind will always be in an exploratory form, instead of a coding mechanism that executes the same steps each time. So, it will provide more expansive coverage for the system validation.
A majority of bugs/errors in a software application will be caught by manual testing.
Manual testing limitations
Manual testing execution is slower than automated test execution. Code executing on a computer is always going to be faster than humans performing actions manually.
Manual testing has to be repeated each time a change is made to the application and this is very time-consuming when compared to easily re-running automated testing scripts.
Manual testing can also easily become boring for the testers and may lead to their testing work dropping in quality.
Just like any other form of testing, manual testing cannot guarantee you 100% coverage of every scenario a software application can go through. There will be some gaps and the more detailed a manual tester is the longer the testing phase is.
Final thoughts
Manual testing is a vital part of user-friendly software development because humans are involved in testing software applications and end-users are also humans. It judges software from the most important metric: User Experience.
One of the software testing fundamentals is "100% Automation is not possible". This is why manual testing cannot be avoided altogether. Some companies do manual testing as support for automation testing. Although technology has advanced and shifted software teams towards test automation, manual testing is still essential.