To Err is Human!
It is a very famous quote that means that every human makes mistakes. So, it is very much possible that while developing software or applications, developers make mistakes that might result in a defect or failure of the entire project. Depending on the severity of the mistake, the outcome can either be minor or catastrophic.
To avoid such an incident, TESTING is essential. Developers should conduct QA testing at every stage and phase of the development cycle.
In this article, you will learn about Software Development Testing, why it is important and how to conduct it. Don't skip a line. Read till the end.
Table of Contents
What is Manual Testing?
Manual testing is a type of software evaluation in which tests are carried out by hand by a QA Analyst or developer. It is used to find any potential issues in software that is still in development.
It is a traditional approach for all sorts of testing that aids in the discovery of flaws in software solutions. A skilled engineer usually carries out test cases and creates reports in this method.
What Tools to use in Manual Testing?
There are different categories of such tools. We have listed the most useful ones for your reference. Let's dive in!
Test Case Management Tools
A test case management platform makes manual testing projects easier to plan, measure, report, and collaborate on. Testing generally requires a lot of paperwork, and if the appropriate tools and processes aren't in place, things can rapidly get out of hand.
Suggested Tools
- TestLodge -TestLodge is a simple and easy-to-use tool for organizing your testing papers. You can develop and manage test cases, requirements, test plans, and test suites with TestLodge. It also has reporting capabilities and connections with Jira and Trello.
- Zephyr – Zephyr works with Jira to help testing teams leave spreadsheets behind and improve visibility into their test results.
- TestLink – TestLink is an open-source test management solution that is free to use. It pairs requirements to test cases and allows for both manual and automated testing.
Issue Tracking Tools
An issue tracker is another important manual testing tool for software testers. As flaws are discovered, testers must produce a thorough bug report to the design and development teams for resolution. There are many issue tracking programs on the market, and while each one is unique, they all seek to tackle the problem of making it easier to monitor issues and interact with teams on project work.
Suggested Tools
- Trello – Trello is a simple project management and issue tracking application that lets testers generate and monitor issues aboard. Trello can be set up using simple rules and automation or more complicated rules and automation.
- Jira – Jira's flexible framework makes it one of the most popular manual issue tracking tools for software testers.
- Clubhouse – helping modern software teams work collaboratively and ship quickly. With Clubhouse, you are able to plan, build, and measure success.
- Teamwork – Teamwork is a project and work management tool that can easily customize to support how teams like to work.
- Asana – Asana is another popular work management platform with a wide range of applications and is utilized by many of the world's largest corporations.
Cross Browser Testing Tools
The nature of the procedure typically necessitates manual testing when using cross-browser testing tools. Today, there are many cross-browser testing tools available to assist testers in saving time and effort while ensuring that their online apps work effectively across all browsers.
Suggested Tools
- BrowserStack – BrowserStack is popular manual testing software. It allows testers to instantly load their application onto on-demand browsers and devices, saving them a significant amount of time.
- Sauce Labs – Sauce Labs is a continuous testing tool that offers simple cross-browser testing solutions.
- Browser Shots – Browser Shots is a free application that allows you to load a URL and obtain screenshots of how the site appears in different browsers.
API Testing Tools
API testing ensures that the API fulfills the application's functionality, security, performance, and reliability standards. The procedure frequently entails repeating the same API requests, which might take a long time. API testing aids this process by allowing testers to save and organize commonly used API requests and scripts.
Suggested Tools
- SoapUI – SoapUI makes it easier for software testers to test APIs. API load testing, API functional testing, and API performance testing are all supported by SoapUI.
- Postman – Postman is a great tool for testing API requests since it allows you to write and save them. These requests can be manually executed or automatically completed in a series.
- REST Assured – Rest Assured is a java library that helps testers to validate RESTful API endpoints quickly.
Screen Capture Tools
When manually testing software, screen capture technologies are useful because many software problems are aesthetic flaws or workflow difficulties that may be better comprehended visually. Some screen capture software allows you to mark up the image and call out particular details. The ability to quickly produce a picture or screen capture in this manner aids software testers in more precisely communicating issues.
Suggested Tools
- CloudApp – CloudApp is a screen recorder, screenshot maker, and animated.gif maker in one app. It enables testers to capture and share what's happening on their screens in real-time with their development teams.
- Like CloudApp, Loom creates screen recordings and videos, allowing testers to capture what they are looking at on the screen.
- Skitch – Skitch enables testers to capture screenshots quickly and annotate them for extra context.
- Screenpresso - captures your desktop (screenshots and HD videos) for your training documents, collaborative design work, IT bug reports, and more…
Email Testing Tools
Email testing is an area that is sometimes ignored, yet it is critical to ensure that emails operate properly and look nice. Email is becoming as much of the product as the program itself due to automated mailings and sophisticated drip campaigns linked to the software. This is why these email tools are included in our manual testing tools list.
Suggested Tools
- Litmus – Litmus is a great manual testing tool since it lets testers see how their emails look in various email clients without signing up for several accounts or downloading email programs, saving time.
- Mailtrap – Email testers adore Mailtrap, another helpful manual testing tool. Mailtrap mimics the functionality of a genuine SMTP server, preventing test emails from accidentally landing in the mailbox of a real client.
- Email on Acid – Email on Acid is a multi-featured email optimizing service that includes campaign analysis and cross-client testing for the performance of individual emails.
Pros and Cons of Manual Testing
Like all other systems, Manual testing poses some Pros and Cons. Let’s discuss both of them in detail.
Pros of Manual Testing
- Receive immediate and accurate visual feedback.
- It is less expensive since you do not have to invest money in automation technologies and processes.
- The manual aspect always benefits from human judgment and intuition.
- An automated test would involve code, which might be time-consuming for testing a minor change.
Cons of Manual Testing
- Because a person does it, it is a less trustworthy testing procedure. As a result, it is prone to errors and blunders at all times.
- Because the manual testing procedure cannot be recorded, the manual test cannot be reused.
- Certain activities are difficult to execute manually in this testing approach, demanding more time during the software testing process.
What is Automated Testing?
Testers or developers create code/test scripts to automate test execution in Automated Software Testing. They create test scripts and validate the program using the proper automation tools. The objective is to finish test execution in as little time as possible.
Automated testing is based solely on a pre-scripted test that runs in the background and compares the actual findings to the predicted ones. This assists the engineer in determining whether an application is performing as expected.
You can use automated testing to complete repetitive jobs and regression tests without the help of a manual tester. Even though all procedures are automated, the first testing scripts take some manual work.
What tools to use in Automated Testing?
Test automation tools, also known as automation testing tools, are software programs that assist users in testing a variety of desktop, online, and mobile applications. These technologies offer automated methods to make the testing process more efficient. The automated testing tools include GUI testing, performance testing, load testing, and API testing.
Below are some of the Test Automation tools:
- Cypress - Cypress is a front-end testing tool for the current web that is entirely based on JavaScript. Its goal is to alleviate the difficulties that developers and QA engineers experience when testing an application.
- Selenium - Selenium is a well-known web browser automation tool. Using the Selenium WebDriver library and a language-specific framework allows QAs to automate test cases for the selected browser.
- TestProject - TestProject is a test automation platform that lets us write automated tests for web and mobile apps.
- Ranorex - Ranorex is a robust test automation tool. It's a graphical user interface (GUI) test automation framework for web, desktop, and mobile apps.
- TestArchitect - TestArchitect is a fully integrated, codeless Test Automation platform that focuses on increasing test coverage and productivity.
- LambdaTest - LambdaTest is a cloud-based cross-browser testing solution that lets you test web applications across more than 2000 different browsers, operating systems, and devices. LambdaTest allows you to do both manual and automatic cross-browser testing.
- Apache JMeter - The Apache JMeterTM is a pure Java open-source program designed to load functional test behavior and evaluate performance. It was initially created by Stefano Mazzocchi of the Apache Software Foundation. JMeter is a tool for analyzing and measuring the performance of web applications and other services.
- Cucumber - BDD (Behavior Driven Development) is a growing approach for testing and ensuring the quality of your code. Cucumber is a well-known BDD framework.
- Protractor - Protractor is a NodeJS-based open-source testing platform for automation. It provides integrated end-to-end testing for AngularJS-based web apps. It works with both Angular and non-Angular apps.
- WebdriverIO - WebdriverIO is a test automation framework that uses the Webdriver protocol and Appium automation technologies to execute tests.
The tools of automation testing is a lot, but get to know them too: Maestro Testing for mobile and web apps.
Pros and Cons of Automated Testing
Here’re the pros and cons of Automated Testing:
Pros of Automated Testing
- Automated testing helps you uncover more flaws when compared to a human tester.
- You can have a quick and efficient procedure because the majority of the testing process is automated.
- It is possible to record the automation process. This allows you to reuse and run the same testing processes over and over again.
- Unlike manual testing, automated testing is carried out utilizing software tools. Thus it does not tire or fatigue the tester.
- Because it delivers quick and precise testing results, it may readily boost productivity.
- Various applications benefit from automated testing.
- Testing improves by implying automated testing to cover more ground to find flaws.
Cons of Automated Testing
- It's impossible to gain insight into visual components of your UI like colors, typeface, sizes, contrast, or button sizes without a human element.
- Automation testing tools may be costly, which might drive up the cost of the testing project.
- The automation testing tool isn't completely foolproof yet. Each automation technology has its own set of restrictions that limit the extent of automation.
- Another important difficulty in automated testing is debugging the test script. The expense of test maintenance is high.
How to choose the Best Testing Method?
Choosing the right technique of testing is crucial to the entire development cycle. In making the selection following factors are important to consider.
- System or Software Application Types
- Regulatory standards
- Customer's requirements
- Level and type of risk
- Test objectives
- Tester's skill and knowledge
- Time and budget
- Application development life cycle
- Previous experience in types of defects tracked
Summary
While discussing parts of method design, I would like to point out that an unsatisfactory test might provide unwanted results or, even worse, fail to detect problems.
Testing manually and testing by automation are not mutually exclusive. In reality, when the size of your project and the program's complexity under test are balanced, both techniques perform well. Still, test automation is a more cost-effective, efficient, and dependable option in large-scale, long-term projects.
If you are looking for a Software Development Company that can help choose the right testing method for your next project, then contact us at Selleo.
