Building great software requires a few crucial components for success to not just be achievable, but also consistent as time passes by. The right software development strategy, a thoroughly scoped software development life cycle, as well as the right selection of talent makes much needed outcomes and expectations possible.
Software quality is another key ingredient as well – and it starts from as early as the information gathering stage. Your QA specialists are front and centre when it comes to inspecting your software, identifying any bugs and reporting them, so relevant fixes can be made in the interest of improvement.
Your QA team, also, is strategically positioned to advocate for your end users; with QA teams receiving a constant stream of user feedback from multiple communication channels, they are poised to truly understand what customers like and dislike. In turn, this gives them the focal point that is required to steer the rest of your team towards understanding what truly matters, and what should be focused on.
With multiple tools and strategies available, software testing teams need to also determine which testing types are best suited to the needs of your software or application. In this article, we discuss two important software testing types – manual and automated software testing. Additionally, we provide a set of questions that your teams can address, to help strike the right balance between the two. Read on to know more!
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Manual software testing is the execution of software testing tasks by a human tester, utilising attention to detail, observability and other skills when inspecting parts of, or an entire application. Manual software testers require no coding skills, and simply inspect application components from the front-end, to identify any bugs or loopholes. These are then reported back to the development team, so they can be fixed accordingly.
Owing to human testers manually inspecting an application, manual software testing can ‘read between the lines’, when it comes to the software that is being built. For example, manual testers can identify aesthetic inconsistencies within applications – something that test scripts and test automation tools may miss.
Automated software testing conducts tests through the execution of test scripts and test automation tools. This makes automated testing programmatic, thereby eliminating the need for a human tester to manually inspect the software, and report on any bugs. Many test automation tools today feature drag-and-drop workflow builders that require no coding knowledge. This makes automated software testing much easier to configure and implement – often at the hands of manual testing personnel.
Automated software testing is now being embraced by software QA testing teams both in-house and across software outsourcing companies, thanks to the vast volumes it can accommodate within a limited span of time. However it is important to note that automated testing requires periodical human intervention even after initial configuration, to ensure that test scripts and custom workflows are functioning as expected.
Additionally, as your application evolves, test scripts and workflows will also need to be updated, thereby further necessitating human intervention.
A combination of both manual and automated software testing is advisable for most software development projects, as this can help constitute a balanced software testing life cycle. Using only one of the two is a rare exception; while manual testing alone may suffice for very small and temporary projects, using automated testing solely could help for legacy systems that are seldom being monitored.
As a business owner or software project manager, you will likely need to determine how to strike the right balance between manual and automated software testing methods. The below questions may help shed some light on which software testing types are most suitable, in which proportion, and when each needs to be implemented for ensuring the most optimal outcome:
Software QA is an integral part of your software development life cycle, with manual and automated software testing methods constituting as the main testing types that team members can utilise for both routine and ad hoc inspections. While manual testing primarily involves human intervention for detecting errors within an application, automated testing makes use of test scripts and test automation tools to programmatically execute testing sequences, with little to no human intervention.
Manual and automated testing each have their pros and cons. For example, manual testing is more effective at identifying any inconsistencies that require greater attention to detail, as human testers can apply discernment and observability in a granular and contextual manner. Automated testing, on the other hand, is effective for running tests that are repetitive and predictable, which thereby helps to free human testers and run tests with zero chances of error.
Considering the strengths and weaknesses of manual and automated testing, a combination of both need to be applied for the typical software development project today; it is quite seldom that teams can only rely on one.
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