Why Manual Testing Is Still Worth the Effort in QA

“Why are we still testing manually?” It’s a question that every quality assurance (QA) team has had to answer at least a few times in the past five years. With automation and generative artificial intelligence taking the front seat, many QA teams have to balance and justify manual testing in an automated world.

Automation and AI tools are more intelligent, sophisticated and easier to use than ever before. Yet, neither are silver bullets or one-to-one replacements for manual testing. In this article, we’ll explore manual testing, why it’s still important, how it compares to automation and how to ensure it remains relevant. 

Advantages of Manual Testing Over Automation 

Manual testing is the hands-on process of uncovering software defects with human testers. It’s an essential part of software development and assurance processes and helps identify inconsistencies and app-breaking issues that automated tests might miss. 

Manual testers can evaluate user interface anomalies and unexpected user behavior, ensuring the software performs as expected under various conditions. A task an automated tool simply can’t accomplish. 

This makes manual testing crucial for test cases that require human intuition, creativity and critical thinking. It plays an essential role in:

• Enhancing user experience by allowing testers to evaluate usability, accessibility and overall user experience.
• Detecting real-world issues that automated testing might miss. Human testers can reproduce complex scenarios and identify edge cases.
• Validating assumptions and requirements by applying human judgment to ensure your software aligns with user expectations and compliance regulations.
• Adapting to change by providing flexibility to handle changes, such as new feature requirements, where testers can quickly adjust test cases and explore new areas.

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How Different Types of Manual Testing Provides Flexibility

Manual testing offers a variety of approaches your team can take based on what your product needs. Some options include: 

Exploratory Testing

Exploratory testing involves testers evaluating the software without a predefined test case to identify unexpected defects or areas for improvement. 

Ad Hoc Testing

Ad hoc testing is informal and random. It involves testers executing tests without a predefined plan for issues that need quick verification and relies heavily on the tester’s experience and intuition.

Regression Testing

Regression testing ensures that new updates do not introduce new defects or disrupt existing features by retesting previously working features.

Usability Testing

Usability testing evaluates user-friendliness through user interviews, surveys and direct observation. 

Functional Testing

Functional testing is the most common type of manual testing. It involves validating the software’s functionality against specified requirements. This includes:

Smoke Testing

Smoke testing is the first step in software testing. It is a quick, surface-level check of basic functionality to ensure the software is stable enough for more extensive testing. 

Black Box Testing

Black box testing is an approach that involves testers evaluating functionality without any knowledge or access to the back-end code. 

White Box Testing 

This method allows the tester to access the back-end code and manually examine the system’s internal structure. 

Gray Box Testing

In this testing type, the tester has partial knowledge of the application’s internal structure and functionality and manually evaluates it. 

Niche Testing Types

Some types of testing are too nuanced and complicated to automate. These include: 

Localization Testing

Localization testing verifies language, cultural and regional preferences to ensure that software meets the demands of a specific target market or locale. 

Payment Testing

Payment testing verifies that payment flows, transaction processes and security measures function correctly in real-world conditions using real transactions and payment methods. 

When Does It Make Sense to Automate Tests? 

It’s no secret that automated testing brings efficiency and accuracy to the testing process. However, automating everything to replace manual testing is a recipe for disaster. While some tests are better suited for automation, others can add to your technical debt and maintenance workload. 

For example, automating user interface (UI) testing is not only complicated but also expensive. Automated UI tests need constant maintenance, without which your scripts will become unreliable and irrelevant. As more scripts need updates, your technical debt will increase, and your automation will fail. 

So it’s best to limit automation to test cases that:

• Are stable and have high passing rates. 
• Leverage large data sets or multiple data sets. 
• Are prone to human error or time-consuming.
• Have significant downtime between steps.
• Are necessary before manual testing to ensure efficiency.

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How to Manual Testing Can Remain Relevant in the Age of AI

Your next question might be: How do I justify manual testing and ensure it’s relevant as pressure to automate builds? For manual testing to stay relevant, it must adapt and evolve with the latest technology and industry trends.

Here are a few practical strategies:

• Focus on human-centric testing: Areas like user experience, usability and accessibility testing need a human touch. Automating these is complex, expensive and, frankly, not worth the investment. 
• Keep learning and upskilling: Manual testers must learn new tools, techniques and programming languages. They must handle challenging testing scenarios and work well with automation experts.
• Team up with automation: Instead of seeing manual and automated testing as rivals, focus on blending both to maximize their value. Use human judgment to test real-world usage patterns, build reliable and repeatable scripts and provide a manual fallback for failed automated tests to minimize technical debt. 

While automation has transformed testing practices with speed and efficiency, manual testing remains critical due to its ability to provide thorough insights, adapt to complex scenarios and ensure comprehensive software testing. 

Instead of looking at automation as the end-all-be-all replacement for manual testing, organizations should focus on selecting the appropriate workflows for each type of testing and optimizing them as part of a comprehensive strategy.

Manual testing is here to stay, and businesses that continue to strike the right balance between human and automated testing will deliver superior digital experiences. Those relying solely on automation or manual testing will be left behind, so it’s essential to take a balanced approach to ensure efficiency and long-term returns from both approaches.