Image Credit https://aipxperts.com/manual-testing-vs-automation-testing/
Introduction
Testing is a crucial phase in the modern Software Development Life Cycle in order to deliver high quality products.
One of the early key decision that the tester has to make is whether to apply Manual Testing or Automated Testing.
Both testing approaches have their own strength and limitation, by the end of this blog, w=e will learn which is better, manual or automation testing.
Image Credit: https://datarob.com/essentials-software-development-life-cycle/
What is Manual Testing?
Manual Testing, as the name suggests, is a process where the test assume the role of an end user, and manually executes all the test cases without the help of any testing tools.
This approach is ideal for exploratory testing, usability testing, adhoc testing, …. and scenarios where a human’s judgement is valuable.
It’s also ideal for complex scenario which is hard to automate and maintain.
Image Credit: https://www.shiksha.com/online-courses/articles/manual-testing-in-software-engineering/
What is Automation Testing?
Automation Testing requires the use of specialize tools, scripts, frameworks to execute test cases without any human intervention. Thus, it also demand that the tester who operate the Automation Testing must have the necessary skill.
Automation Testing can continuously and repeatedly eecute an incredible amount of test cases.
Automation Testing can ensure consistent result and takes less time and effort to complete the testing.
Image Credit: https://www.edureka.co/blog/what-is-automation-testing/
Key difference
| Manual Testing | Automation Testing | |
| Time | Consume more time since the test cases are executed on after another | Much faster |
| Setup | Not much setup to do | Initially take much more time and effort , maybe better in the long run. |
| Participant | Human testers | Test script, test tools. |
| Maintenance | Easy to maintain | Require constant update and maintenance to the script |
| Consistency | High consistency | Prone to human errors |
| Flexibility | Highly flexible, can quickly adapt to change | May struggle to adapt to unexpected change and complex scenario |
| Test Coverage | Limited test coverage due to time restraint and scope | Wider test coverage as tests can be executed much faster |
Strength and weakness of Manual Testing
Strength
- Ideal for small scale project with frequent change in requirement as you don’t need large budget for automation process
- In testing type such as Exploratory, Visual, Adhoc, Usability …. human judgement is always better than test script to uncover unexpected issues and determine whether the software offer a satisfactory experience for the end-user.
- Highly adaptable to any small change during the development cycle. While automation test may require coding that could take more time, manual testing can be executed almost right away.
- Complex scenario is much better to be tested manually rather than automation test.
Weakness
- The testing is based on the skill and the experience of the test, so human error is inevitable.
- Very time consuming. Tester need to execute the test cases one by one, which may require a lot of time and effort, especially in large scale project.
- Lack of scalability , the more test cases, the more tester required.
- Unable to handle large volume of test data
Image Credit: https://www.practitest.com/resource-center/article/manual-vs-automation-testing/
Strength and weakness of Automation Testing
Strength
- Reduce testing effort as the test scripts are run automatically
- Ideal for large scale project with a lot of repetitive task such as Regression Testing, API Testing, Performance Testing …
- The result is highly accurate and consistent, as human testers cannot have such precision compared to the machine
- Automated testing reduces the dependability of testing on the availability of the test engineers.
Weakness
- Not ideal for software with frequent business change, since update new script to fit the new change is not as fast and efficient as manual testing.
- Without human intervention, automation testing cannot offer constant visual feedback and a satisfactory user experience
- Automated testing only removes the execution of testing process, however, creation of test cases still requires human testers
Is Automation Testing better than Manual Testing?
Automation has many edge over Manual Testing such as process speed, consistency, accuracy, … but it cannot replace Manual Testing, at least for many years to come.
A good software product always need human judgement, experience, … to discover issues that might go undetected, which is something very challenging for Automation Testing to accomplish.
When it comes to the end-user’s point of view, Manual Testing is superior. Human interaction is always important to evaluate an end-user’s experience.
There will always be testing scenarios that require human’s judgement. Automated tools can help to generate the test cases for the repetitive tasks or large-scale testing initiatives.
Manual and automation is supposed to support each other. Finding the right balance will maximize efficiency and deliver high-quality software product.
Image Credit: https://www.professionalqa.com/manual-testing-vs-automation-testing
Making the decision
In summary, both Manual and Automation Testing have their own roles in any Software Development Life Cycle. Moreover, Manual and Automation Testing are not mutually exclusive, they can support each other by combining the strength of both.
Manual Testing is valuable for scenarios involving human’s intuition, while Automation Testing will ensure speed, precision, consistency in repetitive tasks.
Both approaches have their own characteristics, advantage, limitation, which must be carefully considered.
Making the decision to choose either or a combination of both depends various factors such as project needs, tester’s programming skill, available resource, in order to determine the most appropriate testing strategy.
Image Credit: https://quintagroup.com/blog/automated-testing-vs-manual-testing-what-to-choose