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What is Manual Testing?
Manual Testing is a testing process, where the Software Testers manually test the Software without using any Test Automation tools. The purpose of Manual Testing is to find bugs in the Software without using any Test Automation tools like UFT/Selenium etc.
How to perform Manual Testing? The below are the steps performed by a Software Tester, in order to perform Manual Testing on any Software Application:
Step 1: Software Tester goes through the Requirements Specifications Document and creates a bunch of test cases for testing the Software Application. The following are few test cases for logging into the Facebook application:
- > Login to the facebook.com using the valid username and valid password
- > Login to the facebook.com using invalid username and password
- > Login to the facebook.com without providing any username or password
Step 2: Software Tester executes the test cases manually (i.e. with hands and eyes ). The following is an example of how the Software Tester will execute the created test case for logging into the Facebook application with valid username and valid password:
- Software Tester manually opens the Browser
- Software Tester manually types the facebook.com URL into the address field of the opened browser
- Software Tester manually types the valid username using the keys on his computer keyboard into the ‘username’ field on the facebook page
- Software Tester manually types the valid password using the keys on his computer keyboard into the ‘password’ field on the facebook page
- Software Tester manually clicks on ‘Login’ button on facebook page using the Computer mouse
- Software Tester manually checks with his eyes, whether the tester is able to login to the application and confirms it as successful login after the Facebook Home page is displayed.
Step 3: Software Tester reports bugs if the executed test cases are giving different results from the specified requirements. The following is an example of defect which can be found during test execution:
- > On manually entering the valid username and valid password and clicking on ‘Login’ button, if the User is not able to login to the facebook, the Software Tester will report a Bug. After checking the Bug details provided by Software Tester, Software Developer fixes the Bug. Software Tester then retests the Bug and confirms whether the Bug is fixed.
Manual Testing versus Automation Testing: The following points will help you in understanding the difference between Manual Testing and Automated Testing:
- > Manual Testing: Software Testers performing testing manually without using any test automation tools.
- > Automated Testing: Here Test Automation tools like UFT/Selenium/Others will be used to perform testing on the required Software.
More Details on Manual Testing: The below are few points, which help you in understanding Manual Testing in detail:
- > Manual Testing is best suitable when the Testing Services like Exploratory Testing, Usability Testing, Monkey Testing, and Ad-hoc Testing are needed
- > As Investigation/Questioning/Reasoning/Observation/Judgment on the Application for finding bugs cannot be performed by Automation Testing and is only possible with Manual Testing. Due to this reason, Automation Testing cannot replace Manual Testing.
- > Testers performing Manual Testing will generally understand the Software requirements from the Requirements Specification documents, derive test cases, execute the test cases manually with an intention of finding bugs and report the bugs observed during the execution of tests to developers.
- > Testers will also perform retesting to check whether the reported defects are properly fixed by the developers.
- > Manual Testing is repetitive and boring, as the testers need to frequently execute the test cases again and again when any changes are made to the Software Application by the developers.
- > In Manual Testing, testers need to be patient, open-minded and creative.
- > In Manual Testing, testers need to test the Applications with an End User perspective for finding good defects.
- > Manual Testing comes first, and based on the project requirements Automation Testing will be performed next.
Conclusion: Manual Testing is performed by Software Testing team without using any Test Automation tools.
Next Steps:
- > To learn more about Software Testing, continue to the next post (Click on the Next Post link below)
- > Check complete Software Testing Tutorial Contents here (Click here)
Please leave your questions/comments/feedback below.
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