Which is Better in 2023, Automation Testing or Manual Testing?
Table of Contents
After the advent of automation testing, manual testers, and recruiters began to worry about the resulting job losses. Instead of only worrying about the effects of automation testing, we need to understand its benefits and to what extent we can use it for testing purposes.
What you will learn:
What is the manual test?
- What is Automation Testing?
- Why automation?
- Comparison between manual testing and automation testing
- Scenarios where we can consider automation testing
- Types of tests where we can go with manual or automation
- Conclusion
This tutorial will guide you with automation and where it will take you in the future.
When we use human resources to perform testing, we can consider the testing to be manual. In other words, in this type, we execute the test cases manually. The skills, knowledge, and experience of testers play an important role in manual testing.
What is the Manual test?
Manual testing is the process in which we can manually test any software.
When we use human resources to perform testing, we can consider the testing to be manual. In other words, in this type, we execute the test cases manually. The skills, knowledge, and experience of testers play an important role in manual testing.
What is Automation Testing?
The use of automation tools to execute test cases is known as Automation Testing. It is a type of test for which we need resources with scripting knowledge etc.
Some examples of automation tools: are Selenium, QTP, and UFT.
Selenium comes with C#, JAVA, Pearl, PHP, Python, and Ruby. Therefore, having knowledge of one of these listed languages will work.
Why Automation?
The manual test has certain limitations. Many times we have to do repetitive tests and doing things repetitively can be boring. Testing with valid and invalid inputs can make you angry. To err is human and when it comes to quality we simply cannot compromise.
Time constraint is the most important thing when we talk about software release. If the development teams fail to complete the development process before the deadline, the business loses customers and no one can afford it.
For example, testing software with negative inputs can be time-consuming.
Cost is the major constraint of any software development process. Maintenance costs can be a major issue for undetected defects. Automation comes into play to overcome all the above problems.
Below are some tips that justify the reason for using automation testing:
- This helps us deliver a good quality product.
- It saves time.
- It is interesting to test the multilingual site.
- This allows us to test the software in multiple browsers.
- It does not require human intervention.
- This increases the speed of automation.
- This helps us increase Test coverage
- It helps you to generate the report for test execution, you just can’t modify it and hence it is useful for team leaders/managers.
By using an automation tool, we can record and replay test cases. For example, if a member of your team is on leave or if you want to access a record of test cases run by former employees, this option is beneficial. Selenium IDE is the tool that allows us to save test cases.
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Comparison between manual testing and automation testing
Let’s find out the difference between two types of tests.
| Manual test | Automation testing |
| Using manual testing, it may be difficult to test the application on different operating systems. | With the help of automation testing, we can easily test the application on different operating systems. |
| Test cases are executed manually. | Test cases are executed using tools. |
| Reliability is lower. | Reliability is more. |
| It is less expensive. | It’s more expensive. |
| For some test cases, it takes time. | Since it is a machine, running the cases takes less time. |
| Humans can make mistakes and therefore accuracy is less. | The machine hardly makes mistakes (if asked to). |
| Since it includes human intervention, it is worth checking out the ease of access to the application. | It includes tools therefore unable to verify usability or accessibility. |
| Sometimes it becomes difficult to execute all the test cases and this impacts the test coverage. | In automation, the test coverage target can be achieved easily. |
| For Manuel, it can be difficult to test the application on different browsers. | Automation gives you the advantage of testing the software on different browsers. The Selenium grid allows us to test the application on different browsers. |
| In this, you have to sit in front of your system and run test cases as it includes human intervention. | You need to run automation scripts, you can run them overnight! |
| In this test, you need to create your own reports. | Here the tool will generate a test case execution report. TestNG is the framework that will generate a report for you. |
Since there is a demand for automation, it can be difficult to choose between manual testing and automation testing. Here we have tried to clear up that confusion. Automation also has some shortcomings, so it is important to know them and then decide. We cannot automate every test case, in the next section we have listed some scenarios that can help you select one over the other.
Scenarios where we can consider automation testing
We can consider stable parts of the application for automation.
- Areas where we need to test frequently. For example, if you need to test certain areas after each build.
- Test cases with the possibility of human error should be considered for automation.
- Test cases that should be tested on a different set or large set of data should be automated.
- If a feature has a high-risk condition, it should be automated.
- Test cases that cannot be run manually, For example, multilingual sites.
- Test cases must be tested on different web browsers and environments should be considered for automation.
Next, let’s look at the test types that can be considered for automation.
- Regression Testing: Automation is the best thing about regression testing because it is repetitive testing after changing code.
- Load test: We can opt for automation as it suits it. It is the test in which the system is tested under load to determine the behavior of the system.
- Performance Testing: It is made for testing performance and capacity, so we can consider it for automation.
Types of tests where we can go with manual or automation
- Black box test: It is a type of test where we just need to check the functionality. It does not require coding knowledge as it is not visible to QA/testers.
- White Box Testing: It is the type of testing where we deal with the internal structure of an application. It is also known as the “glass box test”. This requires knowledge of the code system, branch, paths, conditions, etc.
- Integration Testing: This is the type of testing where we link different modules and tests to see how they work together.
- System test: In this type of test, we check if the application is working properly.
- Unit test: In this type of test, we test a single module so that we can find a defect at an early stage. If we have to find a defect at an early stage, we can fix it for sure. It’s made by the developers.
- Acceptance Testing: It is the type of testing where we have to consider user acceptance as performed by the end user. The end user will only accept the software if the product justifies the requirements.
Conclusion
Testing is a huge field and manual testing is still as important as automation. There are many kinds of tests that the automation tool cannot help us with and we have to choose the manual test. Tool scripts are designed manually.
The tool is designed manually, the tools do not require human intervention but require the command which is given by a human.
At Sensation Solution, we specialize in automation testing and can help you determine if it’s the right fit for your project. Our team of experts can help streamline your testing process and improve the overall quality of your software. If you’re interested in learning more, feel free to contact us today.
