Importance of Manual Testing

What is Manual Testing?

Manual testing is a type of software testing in which testers evaluate software or applications quality manually, without any help of automation testing tools. In this Testers interact with the system similar to how an end user would to identify bugs, defects, and issues in the software that create friction in user experience.

Error Detection:-

• Requirement Gathering:- Understand and analyze the requirements of the software, to ensure that the test cases cover all the specific functionalities of the software or application.

• Test Cases:- Create test cases and checklists to cover both functional and non-functional requirements of the software.

• Boundary Values:- Test the application with boundary values, to check how it behaves at the time of given load into the software.

• Exploratory Testing:- Perform exploratory testing unexpected issues into the software or application.

• Usability Testing:- Assess the usability of the application to ensure it is as per  user requirements and is error-free in terms of user interaction.
• Regression Testing:- Testers must perform regression testing after each and every change of development. make sure that new releases of development do not generate new defects.

Error Prevention:-

• Audit or Review:- first take reviews of the test cases, test plan and client requirements before development. After development review code to catch errors in the software application at the time of development process.

• Training:- Provide training to testers after development of software application, guide testing techniques, and tools to improve their skills.

• Flow design and Documentation:- Maintain software Design and its  documentation for test cases, test plans, and bug reports to ensure clarity and traceability of the software.

• Communication:- Faster and effective communication between developers, testers, and other colleagues to quickly address the issues of mis-understandings.

• Test Environment Configuration:- Ensure that the test environment is stable, and compatible to avoid false positives and negatives in test results.

User Experience Validation:-

It ensures that the software is developed according to the client requirements and specifications. The Validation apprise software that it meets as per user’s needs and requirements.

• Understand User Expectation:- The user expectations are that where, what user’s are expecting from a new product or service. This could be applied to both physical and digital products, but the expectations could vary significantly. In this developer use to Understand the users’ needs, their preferences.

• Describe Acceptance Criteria:- The Acceptance criteria are described as the conditions, which must be satisfactory for a product, user story, or increment of work to be accepted. This includes aspects such as responsiveness, similar navigation, and overall usability.

• Consistency Across Various Platforms:- check the consistent user experience, across different devices and different platforms. Test the software on various browsers, operating systems. It confines the alignment of a brand’s messaging, values, and overall image.

• Error Handling and Messaging:- Estimate how the software handles bugs or errors and how to communicate with users or stockholders. The Product teams should be focused on designing, engineering or development.

• User Feedback Incorporation:- Feedback should be incorporated into design of user interface in a systematic and effective way that aligns with user needs, business goals, and design principles. Feedback from users or stakeholders can provide valuable insights into potential software improvements.

Exploratory testing and creativity:

Exploratory Testing:- Exploratory testing is the testing in which, testers test a product and find bugs and errors without the help of test scripts or test cases.

Creativity of Exploratory Testing:-
In various directions, being creative aids in the discovery of user workflows that are not on the typical path.  Testers must abandon the happy road in order to discover faults, while automated or manual regression testing usually takes care of it. Some examples of inventiveness in exploratory testing are as follows:-

• Flexibility:- Testers performing exploratory testing must be flexible enough to adjust to changing requirements, user stories, or unexpected issues. While building new test cases on the spot and changing the testing strategy according to new information, creativity is essential. 

• Test Design:- Testers develop and maintain our test scenarios. Instead of conforming to a prewritten script, they create and modify test cases. It depends on their views of the application and observations.

• Flexible Test Documentation:- Test documentation that is predefined isn’t required for exploratory testing. The context and kind of issues found form the basis of the documentation.

• Efficient Time Range:- Compared to scripted testing, exploratory testing may be faster. Test scenarios are easily recognized by testers. 

• Cooperation:- Working together as a team is common in exploratory testing.

Adaptability to Changes:

• Adopt Automation:- Automation testing can handle time-consuming tasks. It saves time to test software applications as compared to manual testing.

• Examining Priorities:- It focuses on the analytic or critical paths and functionalities of the testing that must bother most to the users or stakeholders. These techniques are too useful at the time of test cases for execution. 

• Test concurrently:- Concurrently or Parallel tests consist of two or more parts of the software that only check individual or separate parts in an application or software. In this, multiple testers are working on different features and different crunches of the software application at the same time.

• Design Agile Test Cases:-  Write test cases in brief, short, for making them very easy to understand to tester, or to update as per requirements changes into the software.

• Maintain Documentation:- Maintain clear documentation of test cases, test results, and any other issues faced during testing. This documentation supports adapting to changes by providing a solid foundation for future testing activities.

• Networking between Team:- Build a strong network with the testing team, to share experiences and knowledge and testing techniques. Engage in discussions and try to gain perceptions into how others are modified to changes in manual testing.

Conclusion:-

Manual testing is required in the software development lifecycle. Manual software testing remains an important part of software  testing. It offers different advantages in terms of human insight. In manual testing they discover hidden bugs, usability issues, security concerns.