The debate in the QA community about the future of manual testing is both ongoing and never-ending. From discussions on forums to various articles on the topic, the discussion about manual testers (and even the term “manual testers” itself) raises a lot of heated emotions in the testing community.

Here is one such claim from an article that stirred a particular amount of controversy:

“…happening right now: manual testing is dying, and those who are not quickly upskilling will find themselves with no viable career prospects in the near future.”

But what does “upskilling” mean in this context? In this and many other articles, “upskilling” mostly focuses on learning how to code. These articles suggest that by developing coding skills, testers can better embrace the various tools and frameworks out there that are meant to help them do their jobs better.

So when someone asks if manual testing is dying, they are often really asking whether or not coding experience is necessary to succeed as a tester. Regardless of whether or not we agree with this claim, It’s important to remember that there are many skills that testers can learn in order for their testing, and specifically automation testing, efforts to thrive. Testers can also use code for a wide range of testing purposes aside from learning specific tools and frameworks, such as code reviews.

Yet we also believe that the statement, “manual testing is dying” is a very extreme one that does not take into consideration the various skills that business testers bring to the table, regardless of coding skill. It also doesn’t take into account the unique benefits that come with manual testing that differ from automation testing.

Therefore, we wanted to take this opportunity to share how we believe manual testing shows unique value, and how automation can – and should – complement manual testing by allowing teams to improve their testing quality as a whole.

Forget about 100% test automation

To start, it’s critical that we make this important disclaimer from the get-go: there’s no such thing as 100% automation when it comes to testing.

We’ve all that had that experience when a manager says that they want to automate their entire testing operation. While it’s true that automated testing has many advantages that can help your QA efforts scale and shorten release cycles, automation also has its limits and cannot be a be-all-end-all solution to your testing issues.

To give an extremely basic definition, automation is the act of taking a process, whether simple or complex, and making it run without human assistance. This process is normally trying to accomplish a specific task and is made up of a series of predetermined actions. Therefore, an automated process repeats the same actions over and over again on a schedule.

Manual testing vs. automation testing

One main difference between manual testing and automated testing is that it’s not repetitive. Contrary to an automated process, human thought (which serves as the foundation of manual testing) cannot be replicated over and over again. A thought isn’t predetermined; rather it is a momentary and impromptu cognitive process.

Another difference between an automated test and a manual test is the outcome. In manual testing, it’s not necessary for the test to have an outcome. Rather, there is a hypothesis, through which testers can explore both the limits and the breadth of their applications. The options are virtually endless as testers can find different ways to better understand their product and ensure that they are providing the best possible user experience to their users.

On the other hand, automated testing is motivated by achieving a specific and expected result. The test performs a particular action, which should lead to a predetermined conclusion. If the outcome is achieved, the automated test was successful. If not, either the code under test is faulty, or in some cases that the application changed and the test didn’t account for those changes properly.

Machines handle repetitive testing, while humans do exploratory testing

To summarize, humans are more suited to do emotionally-driven tasks that require creativity and thought, while automated tests are better for doing more repetitive, operational tasks. In testing, we see the line drawn in the sand pretty clearly: machines do regression, while humans do exploratory testing.

While humans are physically capable of doing the repetitive tasks found in areas such as regression testing and UI testing as well, humans are more likely to make an error in these cases than machines. The nature of regression testing begs for automation since there’s no critical thinking involved, but rather checking “line by line” that newly added code hasn’t affected the code that already exists.

In areas such as regression testing, machines are not only better suited to run these kinds of tests, but they will also do so faster, more precisely, more cost-efficiently, and on any machine at any time of day or night. This is work that testers don’t need to do, and in fact, having these kinds of tests run automatically will free up time and resources for testers to focus on work that is better suited to their skills and creative abilities.

Exploratory testing, on the other hand, is based on the tester’s experience, judgment, creativity, intuition, and wit. Machines don’t have wit. They might have “intelligence” (albeit an artificial one) but they definitely don’t have wit. It is this area of exploratory testing where manual testers can use their experience, knowledge, and ability to ask the tough questions to really shine.

While there may be a time when machine learning grows to such a state where it can also delve into the “exploratory” aspects of testing, this is something that is very far off. For now and for the foreseeable future, the presence of automation testing is not a threat to testers’ jobs. Rather, manual testing and automation testing have two different, unique roles that complement each other well in order to create a robust testing operation.

Manual testers know the business and your users

Another important advantage that manual testers bring to the table is their familiarity with the organization’s business processes. There is a reason why manual testers are also often referred to as “business testers”; their knowledge of both the product and how users interact with it is often unparalleled. Oftentimes, business testers come from other departments in the organization. This gives them a unique lens through which they test on the business aspects of the application in a more focused manner.

This level of business insight from manual testers also means that they have more awareness of how users interact most often with the application. Instead of focusing on whether or not the code is working (which automation can take care of in many cases), manual testers are best positioned to test an application from a user perspective. By allowing automation to take over the more repetitive and monotonous aspects of their workload, manual testers will have the time to optimize their users’ experiences and ultimately increase their overall test coverage.

Automation is a tester’s best friend

To conclude, we believe that manual testers play an important role when testing an application and that manual testing is not “dying” by any means. Instead of automation taking over testers’ jobs, automated testing can help testers both do their jobs better and focus on the projects that they were hired to do in the first place.

At TestCraft, our mission is to empower testers with our codeless test automation platform. With our tool, testers can turn their repetitive, yet time-consuming test scenarios to automated ones, without writing a single line of code. Our platform’s sleek and user-friendly UI makes automated test creation and execution simpler than ever, while our AI-based, self-healing technology reduces test maintenance and allows testers to scale their efforts quickly.

Testers are the business experts who know the applications best and should not be pushed out of the testing process due to a lack of coding experience. While testers should focus on the what and why of testing, a test automation tool can help take care of the how.

Ultimately, test automation replaces tasks, not testers. While there is still a lot of room for automated testing tools to grow, it can relieve many pains that come with testing software manually. Yet automation cannot replace all aspects of testing. Humans will always continue to be part of the equation, and bring unique value to determining the quality of software before it’s released. Machines will take care of testing functionality.