December 28, 2013

When Manual Testing is better than Automated Testing

Manual testing is testing done by the tester using his intellect but without the use of automated testing tools. Manual testing has possible disadvantages. It can be expensive in effort, have human mistakes or just be boring. Even so, manual testing continues to be very popular because of its powerful advantages. Since manual testing is done by a human being and not a program, the test design and test execution can be changed very quickly. Manual testing is done using the creative and analytical skills of the tester and it requires no investment in software testing tools. Now, let us see the situations where manual testing is the better option due to technology limitations of today.

Usability testing
- This test finds if a new user can understand the system UI and navigation and is able to perform tasks on his own.

UI testing focusing on look and feel - It finds if the UI colors, fonts, layout, shapes, control/ web element design are pleasant, appropriate and create a neutral or productive environment for a user to work.

Localization testing - It focuses on testing the system in a specific language and region. The tester needs to find if the UI has the correct display formats, appropriate text translations, correct text direction, is not offensive and so on.

Documentation testing - It finds if a document is factually correct, useful, has the correct level of detail and an appropriate style.

Knowledge transfer to new team member - Due to its interactive nature, manually testing is a great way to explore the system and get familiar with it.

Dynamic requirements - Where the requirements change quickly or when high testing response speed is critical, manual testing is the better choice.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.