Software testing activities can be divided into those that are performed manually and those that are automated. A lot of efforts are applied for making it possible to automate more and more activities. It seems that automation will take away all the tasks from the manual testers step by step.
But professional test engineers are not afraid of staying without work, they are sure that no tools can fully substitute people in this field.
Everybody agrees that certain works are better to run automatically. Tools perform some tasks more efficiently than test engineers. Nowadays one can find many different free and commercial instruments for automating various testing activities.
It is Wise to Automate Tests That:
- are numerous and monotonous;
- often repeat during the project, such as unit testing, regression testing, etc.;
- require the participation of many users for verifying the system under certain conditions, for example, during load testing, stress testing, security testing, etc.
Manual verification is needed for many project aspects as well, in the first place for usability. No mobile testing, desktop testing, or web site testing can be fully automated. A testing process is profitable if manual work and automation are properly combined. The most suitable combination can be provided by professional project managers and testers.