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.”