Any web-development project goes hand in hand with quality assurance testing. It’s natural because the main aim of any piece of software is to make the lives of its users easier. The more thoroughly it was tested along the way, the higher are chances to achieve a flawless experience.
There are two approaches to software testing: manual and automation. Manual testing speaks for itself. It means that all the test case scenarios are manually executed by a human every time. Automation in its turn is focused on writing a test script just once (and introducing small changes to it when the functionality changes) to schedule it automatically without human efforts.
Usually, it’s done using a tool that helps with website testing automation to store the test scripts and their outputs to clearly see the results and simplify troubleshooting in case bugs are discovered during the process.
Automation testing helps to save human resources, ensure the same level of effectiveness regardless of how many times you execute a test-script ( as it cannot be tired of going through the same case again and again, unlike humans), and increase the test coverage. It seems to be the perfect strategy and every QA team should strive for full automation.
But if automation testing is so cool, why can’t it replace the manual one completely?
The answer is simple: some test cases cannot be automated, and in fact, they shouldn’t be. Let’s take for instance the penetration testing. It’s cool when there’s an automatic piece of code scanning the vulnerabilities, but a human could be more effective here, using the random approach of hacking the system, thus will be able to discover the hidden flaws and new signatures of malicious codes that may be not yet added to the system.
So the best way will be to combine manual testing with automation. Here we go with the top 3 reasons why to use them together:
Receive maximum effectiveness from your testing strategy
Automating the routine everyday testing tasks like going through the purchase flow, filling in the details at the checkout, or regression testing will significantly improve the test results. Thus, your QA team will be able to dedicate more time to exploratory testing to learn more about the functionality and come up with ideas on how to enhance the use-case scenarios. Likewise, with purely subjective test cases as usability. Only a human can provide relevant input on the color of the elements or their inconvenient placement. Thus, by combining manual testing with automation the results will be more accurate.
Speed up the results delivery
It may take some time to write auto-tests, but there might be cases when you don’t have it. For instance, you are ready for the release tomorrow but a QA tester came up with the new scenario. In order not to postpone the release if it’s not clear that the functionality is affected, ad-hoc testing that is performed manually can save your time (and nerves). The same is applicable for the cases when there’s the automation script but it’s being rewritten at the moment, so as a temporary solution, the manual intervention may be faster.
Wisely use the QA resources
With partial test cases automation, it’s possible to free up the time of your software testing team that can be used for covering the cases that cannot be automated. Moreover, even if full automation is possible on some projects, it’s not recommended to do so. It will be much more economically wise to leave some tests manual, even if the automation is possible. The main reason behind that is that if some tests are run not regularly, or even just once or twice during the development, their automation will take much more time and money than leaving these cases manual. So keeping a bi-lateral testing approach will help to make a better decision in such cases.
Combining automation and manual testing will allow you to focus on the product and speed up the release process ensuring the highest possible quality accumulating all the benefits from both approaches.
