Challenges Faced in Manual Testing and Solutions

Challenges Faced in Manual Testing and Solutions

Manual testing, a fundamental practice of software quality assurance, is confronted with a plethora of issues in today’s rapid development cycles. Matters such as human mistake, time-wasting and repetitive work, and scalability constraints may delay the release cycle and deter product quality. These challenges faced in manual testing need to be handled with unique knowledge and capabilities. 

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Challenges Faced in Manual Testing and Solutions

Manual testing is an integral component of software development, though it has its own set of special challenges. They can impede efficiency, augment costs, and degrade the ultimate product’s quality if not tackled foreseeingly. Following are 10 challenges in manual testing, coupled with solutions and practical applications.

Human Error and Fatigue

Challenge: Manual testing relies heavily on the diligence of people. 

• Sustained repetition, long hours, and complicated test cases can contribute to lapses in judgment, like a visual bug being overlooked by a tester or a tiny functional bug. 
• This is particularly common with activities like regression testing when the same set of tests is run multiple times.

Solution: 

• Introduce checklists and standard procedures so that no steps are omitted. 
• For extremely repetitive tasks, automate them. 
• Also, use pair testing, in which two testers collaborate, to have a second set of eyes and increased accuracy.

Real-World Example: In a banking app, a manual tester may verify manually that transaction records appear as they should. After hours of looking at hundreds of transactions, they may not catch a small font size anomaly or misaligned decimal point that an automated visual regression test or a pair tester would catch easily.

Time and Resource Intensive

Challenge: Manual testing of tests, particularly for complex and large applications, is very time-consuming. This can become a development lifecycle bottleneck, slowing down releases and making them more expensive.

Solution: 

• Adopt a risk-based testing approach. 
• Prioritize testing of the most important and high-risk features, thereby ensuring that essential functionalities are well tested. 
• For low-priority or non-essential features, a less rigorous manual testing methodology can be adopted.

Real-World Application: For an online store, the most vital functionality is the checkout process. A team with time constraints would focus on manual testing on this flow (putting items in the cart, using a discount code, entering payment information) and exploratory testing on less vital features such as “related products” suggestions.

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Limited Test Coverage

Challenge: It’s highly unlikely that a human tester can test each of the possible combinations of inputs, user scenarios, and device/browser configurations. This might cause huge holes in test coverage, so introducing bugs in production which are not expected.

Solution: 

• Create a requirements traceability matrix (RTM) to identify test cases mapping to individual requirements, thereby covering all features. 
• Utilize exploratory testing, which enables testers to exercise their intuitive thinking to identify bugs in unplanned situations. 
• For intricate configurations, leverage cloud-based testing platforms that offer a plethora of devices and browsers to test against.

Real-World Application: When testing a mobile app, it’s impossible to own every single Android phone model. A company can use a cloud-based service like BrowserStack to test their app on various devices, OS versions, and screen sizes to ensure compatibility.

Regression Testing Overhead

Challenge: Once new features are added or bugs are corrected, testers need to re-run a big set of existing tests (regression tests) to verify that the changes haven’t caused new bugs in already functioning code. Manually performing these tests for each release is slow, cumbersome, and error-prone.

Solution: Automated regression testing. 

• Those tests that are run repeatedly and repeatedly are the best candidates for automation. 
• This allows manual testers to concentrate on more sophisticated activities such as exploratory testing and usability testing.

Real-World Application: A food ordering website has to be certain that the essential feature (ordering) remains functional after adding a new feature (e.g., tipping). Rather than a manual tester repeating the full ordering process every time, a script can accomplish this in a few minutes, highlighting any regressions.

Lack of Reusability

Challenge: Test cases for manual tests are usually prepared for individual test sessions and cannot be reused in different projects or even for different versions of the same product. Rebuilding test cases from ground up is a wasteful expenditure of time and resources.

Solution: 

• Store and maintain test cases using a test management tool (such as Jira, TestRail, or Zephyr). 
• Such tools enable you to structure, track, and reuse test cases to make sure testing expertise is not wasted.

Real-World Application: A firm that is building several similar mobile applications can develop a primary set of reusable test cases for usual features such as user registration, login, and profile management. This is time-saving and maintains uniformity in all their products.

Recommended: Manual Testing Tutorial for Beginners.

Communication Gaps

Challenge: Miscommunication between testers, developers, and stakeholders can lead to a misunderstanding of requirements, incorrect bug reports, and delays in bug fixes. Testers may report a bug that developers cannot reproduce due to a lack of clear steps or environmental information.

Solution: 

• Use a standardized bug reporting template with all required information, including steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual results, environment details (browser, OS), and attached screenshots or videos. 
• Regular team meetings and collaboration tools such as Slack or Microsoft Teams can also facilitate communication.

Real-World Application: A bug report for a website could read, “The ‘Submit’ button is broken.” A good report would read, “The ‘Submit’ button on the contact form does not work if the user’s name is more than 50 characters. 

Steps to Reproduce: 

1. Go to the contact page. 
2. Enter a 51-character name. 
3. Click ‘Submit’. 

Expected Result: A ‘Thank You’ message is shown. 

Actual Result: The page reloads without a message.”

Scalability Challenges

Challenge: With the growth of size and complexity of a project, the number of test cases increases proportionally. It is not scalable with a small team to manually manage and execute this growing workload, and it can become overwhelming very quickly.

Solution: 

• The combination of manual and automated testing is the way to go. 
• Reserve manual testing for new features and usability, and utilize automation for regression and performance testing. 
• With this hybrid method, the testing process will be able to grow together with the growth of the product.

Real-World Application: An initial small startup can manage with manual testing, but when their users and features expand, they need to invest in an automation framework so that they can maintain their release cycle as quick and speedy.

Recommended: Manual Testing Interview Questions and Answers.

Testing in Varied Environments

Challenge: Contemporary apps need to work well in a variety of devices, operating systems, and browsers. Testing each and every combination manually is impossible and very time-consuming.

Solution: 

• Utilize virtual machines, emulators, and cloud testing platforms to mimic environments. 
• For a web application, tools such as BrowserStack or Sauce Labs offer a broad range of browsers and OS combinations to test against without having to manually install each one. 
• For mobile, emulators and simulators can be utilized to test different devices and versions of OS.

Real-Life Example: A web designer can use a service to check how their website looks using an older version of Internet Explorer on a Windows operating system and on the most current version of Safari on a macOs operating system, all from their own browser. 

Absence of Technical Competence

Challenge: Although manual testing is not exhaustive in requiring programming knowledge, limited technical knowledge could hinder testers from doing more complex forms of testing, such as API testing or database validation.

Solution: 

• Promote constant learning and give training on subjects like SQL for database queries, JSON for API validation, and scripting languages. 
• All this upskilling enables manual testers to engage in more challenging tasks and perform better.

Real-World Application: A test can be performed manually using a tool such as Postman on an application’s API endpoints by sending a request with a predetermined payload and ensuring the API returns the right response code and data, which is quicker and more efficient than testing via the user interface only.

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Challenging Performance and Load Testing

Challenge: Manual simulation of the behavior of thousands of simultaneous users is not possible for testing the performance of an application under stress.

Solution: 

• Automated performance and load testing with specialized tools. 
• One can utilize tools such as JMeter or LoadRunner to simulate thousands of virtual users in order to test the response time, throughput, and stability of an application under varying loads.

Real-World Usage: An online store is anticipating a massive influx of visitors during a big sale. 

• This cannot be duplicated through manual testing. Rather, a tester can utilize JMeter to mimic 10,000 users all attempting to add a product to their cart and checkout at once. 
• The tool will give feedback as to how well the server performs, uncovering bottlenecks in advance before going live with the sale.

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Conclusion

Manual testing, while essential, is challenged by human error, time constraints, and scalability issues. Overcoming these challenges faced in manual testing requires a strategic blend of organized processes, standardized procedures, and a forward-thinking approach. By embracing risk-based testing, leveraging automation for repetitive tasks, and fostering a culture of continuous learning, teams can significantly enhance software quality and efficiency. 

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