What are different manual testing challenges?

Everything in this world has got some positive sides and some negative sides, some advantages and some disadvantages, and of course challenges! This holds utterly true with the technology too. Manual testing being so unsophisticated faces challenges too.

WHAT IS MEANT BY MANUAL TESTING?

- Manual testing involves a tester who is supposed to carry out the testing processes manually for finding out the errors and bugs.
- The tester here tests a software system or application with a view of an end user.
- All the features and functionalities of the software system or application are exploited to the most possible extent.
- As the tester cannot mentally track the whole testing process, he follows a written test plan.
- This also ensures that no important test case is missed.
- Even today after the invention of many modern testing technologies, most of the software engineering projects rely on manual testing since it involves a rigorous testing procedure.
- Manual testing works a long way in digging out more defects.
- In a typical manual testing a high level testing plan is followed.
- All the resources like software licenses and skilled people and computers are identified.
- The test cases are written in detail along with the procedure to be followed and the expected outcome.
- Different test cases are assigned to different testers who carry out the testing manually.
- A detailed test report is prepared.
- Manual testing demands skills because without skill the tester might falter.

CHALLENGES FACED IN MANUAL TESTING

1. Manual testing cannot be used to test out the whole application. It can only be used for some parts. The test cases are so large in numbers that it becomes impossible to execute all of them manually. If you were to execute all of those test cases, testing will take too much of time. You won’t be able to complete the testing within the stipulated period of time.

2. Always pay attention to the company defined processes. You should be well informed with the purpose these processes serve. Often following the company defined processes leas to incomplete software testing. The company processes often don’t keep up with the tester’s methodologies or test plan.

3. Manual testing requires good skills. The main skills required are of trouble shooting, analyzing and communication.

4. As the tester gets more hold of the software system or application testing, more and more test cases and errors and bugs come in to the scene and it become pretty much difficult to keep on testing the software system or application further. This is where the regression testing comes in to the play.

5. You should be careful while choosing the team members. They all should be skilled. Unskilled testers can further aggravate the problem rather than simplifying it. This also leads to inappropriate testing.

6. Manual testing should be governed by the time constraint. There is no time for executing each and every test case. The tester usually focuses on the completion of the task rather than focusing on the quality of the testing. There are a whole lot of the tasks to be performed like executing, documentation, automation and reviewing the test scenario.

7. The problem of sorting the test cases according to the priority often comes in way while following the manual testing. Defining a criterion for the sorting of the test cases well in accordance to the priority.

8. In manual testing the requirements of the software system or application are often misunderstood.

9. The reuse of test scripts is a difficult task in manual testing.

These challenges require analyzing skills rather than any other kind of skills.