Manual Testing – An Overview

Manual testing is a procedure used to determine whether a manufactured good is of high quality and whether it operates in accordance with specifications or not.

Defects are things that don't behave as expected or produce the desired outcome.  

What use does manual testing serve?

Without the aid of any technology, manual testing entails running test cases and browsing the application to spot any deviations from the expected behavior.

The oldest and most significant method of testing, manual testing aids in the discovery of software system defects. Before any new application can be automated with the aid of any tool, it must first be manually tested. Although manual testing is more difficult, it is essential to determine whether automation is feasible.

What are the Entry and Exit Criteria?

Entry Criteria: Entry Criteria gives the prerequisite items that must be completed before testing can begin.

Exit Criteria: Exit Criteria define the items that must be completed before testing can be concluded.

Analysis of Requirements: 

It is the initial phase of the STLC, and it begins as soon as the testing team receives the SRS. During this phase, we assess whether the application under test has functional or non-functional requirements. The result of this phase is a matrix called the Requirement Traceability. The following are some of the tasks carried out during this phase:

• Obtaining Customer Requirements
• Analyzing and figuring out any vague or ambiguous requirements
• Use case-based documentation of the requirements
• Specifying the testing's scope
• Setting Up Requirements Transparency Matrix

Test Case Architecture: The next step will be to convert these business or functional requirements into use cases once we have the traceability matrix. The development, validation, and change of test cases and test scripts are all part of this step.  The result of this phase is Test Cases.

Implementation and Execution: - During this phase, the testers will execute the test cases in accordance with the prepared test plans and test cases. Retesting will be carried out after any bugs have been reported back to the development team for fixing. The results of this phase are the Execution Status and the Bug Report.

Exit Criteria and Reporting: The exit criteria and reporting are the main topics of this STLC phase. Depending on your project workflow and the preferences of your stakeholders, you can choose to send out a daily report, a weekly report, etc. There are various sorts of reports (DSR - Daily Status Report, WSR - Weekly Status Reports).

Closure of the Tests:- The following tasks are part of this phase:

• Verification of the test's successful completion is part of this phase. Whether all test scenarios are run or intentionally mitigated. High Severity and Priority flaws shouldn't exist in the open state.
• The creation of documentation for any fresh insights from the entire cycle or any meeting-based lessons.

Manual testing methods include: 

Black Box Testing

Black-box testing is a method of software testing that verifies an application's behavior in accordance with the functional and business requirements. It is sometimes referred to as a closed-box, opaque-box, or eye-to-eye test. With this technique, the tester attempts to evaluate the functioning of the application that is being tested without having much knowledge of the application's internal architecture. Black box testing needs manual intervention to develop and carry out boundary value and edge cases from the viewpoint of the user.

GUI evaluation

The process of testing an application's graphical user interface is known as GUI testing. The appearance and feel of the application are tested through GUI testing, which includes examining the screens' menus, forms, buttons, icons, and all other kinds of bars, including the toolbar, menu bar, progress bar, scrollbar, dialog boxes, and windows. A real person had to examine the application's appearance and feel and make improvement suggestions for this kind of testing.

system evaluation

System testing entails evaluating the system as a whole, including every module. After all the modules or components have been integrated, testing is done to see if the system functions as intended or not. System testing can be done manually or automatically.

Adoption Testing

Acceptance testing is a testing method used to ascertain whether or not the software system satisfies the defined requirements. This test's primary objective is to assess how the system behaves in relation to the functional and business objectives and determine whether it satisfies the standards necessary for delivery to end users.

Different types of acceptability testing include:

1. Testing for User Acceptance
2. Alpha Evaluation
3. a test version

Functional Evaluation

Functional testing, as its name implies, is a type of black box testing carried out to verify that an application's or system's functionality is operating as intended.

A product's complete functionality is verified through functional testing.

Testing the database

The collection of connected tables that make up databases. Databases may reside on various servers and not all be the same kind. In this testing, all database operations—including Insert, Delete, Update, and Create—are examined.

Basically, database testing consists of the following:

1. Validation of the data.
2. Testing for Data Integrity
3. Performance of databases
4. Procedure, trigger, and function testing.

Objectives of Manual Testing

1. Software testing's primary objective is to detect bugs earlier rather than later by preventing them from occurring.
2. Assessing a product's quality is one of software testing's other main objectives.
3. All test cases must include all test situations so that the application's greatest number of defects and faults can be identified.
4. Since the goal of software testing may be determined by comparing the number of reported faults to the number of written test cases, test cases should be produced very effectively.

Manual testing cannot be replaced by automation because

1. Exploratory testing: In this type of testing, the tester employs imagination, reasoning, and analytical skills to investigate the application being tested. Every time, this method discovers a new approach to obtain faults. This cannot be mechanized because it is a highly intellectual and experimental process that calls for perception and genuine human thought.
2. It is not possible to automate usability testing: It is not practical to automate usability assessments. A human must evaluate the behavior of the application during usability testing. We are unable to develop a code that can distinguish between "great" and "bad" usability. You greatly increase your risk by neglecting usability testing. To provide confidence in the release, this step in the QA process is essential.
3. Runtime decisions must occasionally be made about both everything that takes place in plain sight (during testing) and, in a select few instances, behind the scenes.
4. Sometimes it is necessary to combine questions, research, and reasoning with continual and clear observation. It requires actions to be taken at runtime that were not anticipated during testing.

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