Jason Silberman is Content Marketing Manager at BlazeMeter.

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The Advantages of Manual Vs. Automated Testing

The question of when and how to use manual and automated testing in the application lifecycle usually has attracted much debate. In general, we follow our existing habits. Teams without a long history in automation are likely to support continued manual testing whenever feasible, while those with the tools and automation experience often attempt to automate everything. 


But Q/A teams and developers will tell you that the reality is more nuanced. You need both manual and automated testing. Each approach has its role at different times in the testing practice, and both contribute to the ability of a team to deliver high quality releases. The question is when to use one versus the other? Let’s take a closer look.


Why Manual Testing?


Manual testing provides a way to quickly evaluate a product and provide testers with a familiarity of the features during the development process. Testers create test cases based on their ability to determine whether or not requirements are met. But initially these test cases have to be executed manually, both for the sake of verification of the necessary steps, and also in order to record test scripts for automation in the future.


Manual testing also includes exploratory testing, which enables testers to learn more about the application, while also identifying areas that potentially need more test cases to fully understand weaknesses and risk. Testers use exploratory testing to better understand weaknesses and determine which parts of the application need more test cases.


Lastly, manual testing is especially valuable early in the development of features and the user interface, as layouts and controls are often changing almost daily in response to design considerations and user feedback. It can be more time-consuming to maintain and change automated scripts than to execute tests manually.


From Manual to Automated Processes








The Influence of Agile


Agile processes play a role in the debate. Agile requires automation of as much testing as possible, in order to meet the timing requirements of sprints. Recording automation scripts as quickly as they are validated enables an agile team to focus on ensuring new code and features in sprints are afforded the most individual attention.








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