Manual Testing / Automation Testing

First question that comes to a fresher’s mind when he(or she) joins the quality & testing field is that whether he should go for the Manual Testing or he should go for the Automation Testing. The same question came to my mind also when I joined my first job as a Quality Analyst.

So as I always do before taking any step about my career, I tried to gather information about both of these types. If we see in the market today, we will find (n) number of Test Automation Software Tools, some are free like Selenium and some are expensive like Quicktest Pro, IBM/Rational Robot, Telerik Test Studio, etc. But before going forward let’s understand what these terms actually mean.

Manual Testing

            In simple words, Manual Testing is a process where the tester interacts with the application as an end user and uses each and every functionality of the application to ensure that the application is bug free and behaves in a perfect and pre-decided manner. To optimize the manual testing process, the tester follows Test Cases written before the testing process starts. These test cases help the tester to completely test the whole application.

Automation Testing

            Again in simple words, In Automation Testing, the tester uses a test automation tool to test the application. Thus in automation testing, the tool or we can say a program runs the another program which is to be tested. The test automation tool gives input, conditions, etc and test whether the application behaves according to the pre-decided behavior or not.

            I talked to my friends working as a successful QA’s & Testers in the IT industry. And I came to know that whether we should use Manual Testing or Automation Testing, this decision depends on many factors including what testing we are going to perform as well as on the type of the application, the complexity of the application, the size of the application, etc.

            Today, there are many institutes offering testing courses which will help the students to get job in the Quality & Testing field. So the people coming in this field knows how to operate the software automation tools and how to write their scripts.

“BUT DO THEY KNOW HOW TO TEST?”

I talked to one of my friend who is a Senior Quality Officer in a Multi-National company; I asked him that should I start learning & implementing the test automation tools. The answer I got was quite simple & understandable. He said that, “At the start of career, one should never start using test automation tools, rather one should implement manual testing as it will help him understand how testing should be done. Once a person is confident that he knows the soul of the testing process, he should go for using test automation tools.”

            After listening to this very good & experienced friend of mine, I became sure of what I have to start with. Manual Testing is the word. The newbies in this field should start with the Manual Testing is what I think and yes when you think you know how to test, you can use the test automation tools to do that work for you.

“Test Automation Tools should be used as a support tool but the main thing that should work when the tester tests is the Tester’s Mind.”

Browser Compatibility Testing

The first task that was given to me in my company was to do the browser compatibility testing of one site. As a fresher I got to know many things about the Cross Browser Compatibility Testing. I would like to share it.

 Variety of Browsers

In today’s internet world, there are many browsers available for a user to surf the websites. The most used browsers today include:-

Internet Explorer (IE 9, IE 8 & IE 7)

Mozilla Firefox

Google Chrome

Safari

Opera

There are many more browsers available in the market, but majority of the users’ uses one of the above mentioned browsers.

  

So… What’s The Issue?

          The problem starts when different users’ uses different browsers to surf a single website. Different browsers have different standards set by them to read an Html or Css code and display it on the screen. We are very grateful to the W3C and Web Standardization, because of which the differences between these standards are minimized but they are not finished yet.

The same designing code will act differently when executed by different browsers. And it can act differently up to an extent that sometimes a particular functionality stops working in one or more browser but it works perfectly fine in other browsers. Sometimes the text alignment changes, sometimes designing changes completely, etc. etc. Ultimately these problems can present the site with a messy look. These small (as well as large) problems can affect the end user’s experience interacting with the site up to a great extent, because the functionality will come next but if the designing & looks of the website is not good/decent/beautiful/catchy/professional, the user will… Just Close It.

Reason for This Issue

           There can be numerous reasons for cross browser compatibility issues. The smart developers always follow the defined standards while developing the website. But still there may be a small css block or a particular Html extension which can cause issues. Sometimes even the users have set some configurations in their browsers like font size, screen resolutions, etc. that can cause problems. But that’s not our point. Here we will discuss that what points should be kept in mind while doing a Cross Browser Compatibility Test for a particular website.

Important Points in Cross Browser Compatibility Testing

           I implemented this test on Internet Explorer (7, 8 and 9), Mozilla Firefox & Google Chrome. I have done it numerous times in my colleges and in my project companies but this was the first time I was doing it on job. While doing the cross browser compatibility test as a fresh tester, what I realized is that the latest browsers are having very few chances for these cross browser issues. I noted that the code was running and executing almost same on Firefox & Chrome Browsers.

          The IE Browsers were having much trouble. IE 9 was having the least issues. But if u run the same page in IE 8, there were some differences. And when you run it in IE 7, things starts getting messy.

          Slowly and gradually, it started getting clear to me that which browser is more prone to error for a particular functionality. It may sound surprising, but I did found some bugs in Google Chrome too.

          I listed all the bugs, checked it again by reproducing them, and carried out the procedure of reporting it to the development team. At the end, most of them were solved. ALL’s WELL THAT ENDS WELL

Hello World :)

Hello World,

          Or the Internet World I should say :)

WHO AM I..?

My name is MohmadSoyebAlam S Ansari. In this “Mohmad-Soyeb-Alam”, this entire name belongs to me only. My friends call me “Soyeb”. I have just completed my MCA (Master of Computer Application) from S K Patel Institute of Management & Computer Studies, Gandhinagar & I live in the beautiful and vibrant city named Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat (India).

MY VIEWS ON BLOGGING

This is my first experience of creating a blog and writing something on it. I use to wonder what is the benefit of writing on blogs, acc’ to me it was just like you are throwing your words in the Space & you are not sure whether they will be heard by anyone or not. This was my stand from last many years. And this stand changed completely when I entered the 5^th semester of my MCA, I got the first Industrial Project, had to work in the industry, and then I came to know the importance of those Thrown Words. I started reading & following blogs regularly as I used to get much IT-Conceptual & Programming knowledge from them. And as I have done both of my projects in PHP [ 1)Joomla  2)Zend Framework ] and as PHP is having strong support on the internet, I got the answers of many such question from the internet blogs which sometimes my faculties were not able to answer.

HOW I GOT MY JOB

            

          Just 1 week was remaining for my Final Project Presentation & Viva, and like everyone else I was looking for a job too. I called one company; the HR talked to me and gave me an Interview Appointment. After a couple of rounds, they told me that they will give me a call & they do called and asked me to come for a final interview just one day before my Final Presentation.

          I remember that day; it was 4^th May, 2012(Friday), a hot day as usual. There were still some final touch ups remaining for the PPT I prepared for the Final Preparation. And I went to my final interview. I reached there at around 11.30 am. The HR called me, talked to me a little usual stuff & then asked me to take the decision. The decision which was going to be the most important decision of the 3 years of my MCA Studies. The HR gave me two options,

“Whether you want to go for the position of a Programmer or you want to go for Quality Analyst?”

She explained me the pros and cons of both the positions and my future in both positions, etc. etc. After listening to all those, I was totally confused. I was just able to speak one sentence (Question rather)

“Mam, Can I make a call please?”

She smiled and said “Yes”. I called the person whom I consider as my Guru, Prof Rakesh Bhatnagar, the Coordinator of the MCA department in my college. I told him the situation, he asked me some few basic questions and that’s it. After a small (but very important) 15 minute talk with him, I know what answer I had to give to the HR. I went straight in and she asked me again and I replied,

“I want to make my career in the Quality field.”

She smiled. And then again my Interview process started for the Jr Quality Analyst’s position and at last I was selected for that position.

So I got the job as a Jr Quality Analyst in the company where I joined just before a month.

WHY AM I BLOGGING?

         This is the start of my career as a Quality Analyst. The problem which I faced as a starter was/is that I was not able to get any blog (May be I was not able to find it) where I can get the experience & events of a Quality Analyst from the beginning of his/her career.

            

           So I thought let’s do it myself.

My basic concept for creating this blog is to share the knowledge and expertise as well as experiences that I will gain through my career. First as a FRESHER junior executive, then as a LEARNER, then as an ACTIVE person in this field, further as an EXPERIENCED person and may be after that as an EXPERT (Let’s hope, Fingers Crossed ;)