Will all software testing eventually be fully automated, or does manual testing have a permanent role to play in developing usable products?
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SVP of Global R&D in Hardwarea year ago
All Software testing will never and must never be automated. Manual testing will be a permanent feature of all testing. I see a lot of value in Manual testing for 1) Breaking the system
2) Exploratory testing
3) Usability
4) Serviceability tests
Automated tests on the other hand are very effective in doing regression tests, White Box tests, Combination of tests in parallel, Long Run tests, API tests, Scalability tests, Load test etc.
VP of ITa year ago
I think its analogous to autonomous driving cars.... eventually we'll get there... CISO in Softwarea year ago
Manual, ad-hoc and targeted testing will also be manual. Especially for UX and usability testing.Director of Engineering in Softwarea year ago
This is a very debatable question! You can find multiple points of view from Quality Engineering Experts. But I believe that for a successful engineering structure, a balanced approach between manual and automation strategies is a winning approach. You will be able to use the strengths of each for better quality deliverables.- Automation vs Manual Testing depends on the maturity of the product and the engineering teams involved. Quality by design and the mindset involved is the most important thing to implement first in all levels (product management, team level within each expertise, SRE...). There will then be different phases where the gauge will pass from full manual testing to manual testing assisted by automation and then to automated testing reinforced by user journeys, UX testing, and exploratory testing (Manual).
- Automated testing is meant mainly for approving non-regression tests (E2E + Visual Testing), API compliance (API Testing), and performance SLAs (Stress/Load Testing)...In general repetitive tasks (Frequent/Critical ones mainly). That said, automation tests can't replace the critical thinking, intuition, and domain expertise of Quality Engineers.
- Exploratory Tests/User Journeys tests/Edge cases testing/UX Testing... can't be fully automated and Manual testing outperforms by far any automation attempts even if in certain cases, automation testing still provides some assistance (Chaos Testing)
A combination of both manual and automated testing approaches, known as a balanced testing strategy, is often the most effective approach to ensure software quality and a positive user experience.
Few places where Manual testing trumps automation testing :
Exploratory Testing
Usability and User Experience
User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
Edge Cases and Unpredictable Scenarios
User-Centric and Contextual Testing
Early Testing and Exploratory Discovery
Maintenance and Regression Testing