5 Reasons why Manual Testing is still important in Agile Projects

| Last Updated August 4, 2021 - by Softcrylic under test engineering & operations

In the Agile World, organizations leverage automation to ensure maximum test coverage and faster test completion. Manual testing still plays an integral role as there are scenarios that cannot be completely automated.
Here are 5 reasons why manual testing is still important

1. User Experience

When manual testers interact with the system as how a user would, they can identify usability issues and glitches. Human eyes can spot contextual, functional, visual, and usability bugs that automation scripts may not identify. Testing functionalities like gestures, tap, shake, CAPTCHA, and video control based trigger actions using automated scripts still need a lot of effort and time. The growing complexities of testing enhanced user experience functionalities is one of the primary reasons why manual testing is still important in agile projects.

2. Exploratory Testing

Automation plays by the boundaries as created by test cases and scripts. Testing use cases evolve drastically as the product matures and the Automation needs to keep up the pace in building test suites. Exploratory testing, a skilled form of manual testing with critical, freestyle thinking, and observational skills can discover unidentified bugs beyond coverage.

3. Manual Test Reports are Descriptive

Manual testing helps us understand the problem in detail both conceptually and contextually. It allows the tester to empathize end-users while analyzing the product. Manual Testers write highly descriptive test reports that explain the problem, the root cause, and suggest optimal ways to solve whereas Automation test reports are simply objective.

4. Initial investment of time and money

Manual Testing delivers faster and better quality test results when it comes to testing the early stages of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and frequent updates of a matured application. On the other hand, Automation testing initially takes a significant amount of time and effort in writing automated test cases and building a test automation framework.

5. Manual Testing is pocket-friendly

For smaller projects, the ROI delivered by manual testing proves to be too good whereas Automation attracts a lot of costs associated with implementing automation tools, hiring technical expertise, time and man hours spent in installation, maintenance, and subsequent management efforts.

Manual testing in Agile projects is inevitable in delivering quality software, and when combined with automation testing, together they produce maximum results.