What is Manual Testing?
Manual testing is where a tester executes test cases manually without using any of the automation tools. The aim of manual testing is to identify bugs, issues and defects in the software application and fix them. This testing method is considered to be a primitive form of software testing.
A document detailing the test plan is prepared, which acts as a guide to the manual testing process.
Following are some of the important types of manual testing:
- Unit testing
- Integration testing
- System testing
- Acceptance testing
- Black box testing
- White box testing
How to perform manual testing?
- Gathering of requirements based on the project documentation
- The manual testing team understands the requirements that have been gathered. Then test cases are drafted as per the requirements mentioned in the project documentation
- Once the test cases are properly set-up, then the tester will work and review the test cases. When test cases are scrutinized and if there are any glitches that are being found, then they are corrected, so that execution of test cases gets initiated.
- During the execution of test cases, there will be basically three outcomes that can be expected and those are ‘passed,’ ‘failed’ and ‘skipped.’
- After the successful execution of test cases, bugs and defects that have been identified are written down in a bug report.
- Finally, a detailed test report is prepared. This report contains information on how many bugs were found and the list of all those test cases that need to be rerun. Also, information about test cases that have ‘passed,’’failed,’ or ‘skipped’ is covered in detail.
Listed below are some of the useful manual testing tools:
- Jira
- Testlink
- Trello
- Zephyr
- Testlodge
- Basecamp
- Browser Stack
- Browser Shots
- SoapUI
- Postman
- REST Assured
- CloudApp
- Sauce Labs
- Skitch
Advantages of manual testing:
- Manual testing can be performed on all kinds of software applications
- Manual testing is way cheaper than automation testing
- Applications that have a User Interface (UI) can be better tested with manual testing
- Minor changes in the product can be examined immediately without the need for writing and executing the code.
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