Everyone can do manual testing. It is the backbone of quality assurance, especially when precision and empathy matter most. Whether it’s testing a UI for accessibility or ensuring that an app delivers joy rather than frustration, manual testing puts the human experience at the forefront.

Let's deep-dive into this concept in this article.

What is Manual Testing?

Manual testing is the process of checking software for issues by manually interacting with it without the help of automation tools or scripts. The manual tester interacts with the software like a real user would to identify bugs.

Manual testing is done to make sure the software works as expected before it’s released to users. To ensure that they fully cover everything that's needed to be tested, testers usually follow a test plan. This plan contains all information on what to test, where to test, and the specific steps to execute the tests.

Its simplicity makes manual testing great for small-scale testing of personal projects. For large-scale testing where there are thousands and millions of items and features to test, manual testing is usually used in conjunction with automation testing to boost efficiency.

Example of Manual Testing

Let’s take a look at a simple test scenario: Form Validation.

The goal is to verify that form fields display appropriate messages and behave as expected. A manual tester should follow these steps to execute that test:

Open the form page
Navigate to the form
Type a random combination of characters in the email field
Submit the form

Expected results: the form displays an error message indicating that the input characters are not in the correct format of an email

Email error message for manual testing

This test case can get more complex depending on the business requirements.

For example, a B2B company only wants to collect business emails and not personal emails, so they want to make sure that users type in emails without the “gmail.com” ending.

In this scenario, testers will perform the test above once again, but they’ll type in a personal email (for example: john@gmail.com) then a business email (john@amazon.com) to see how the form behaves.

Manual Testing is Essentially Playing With The System

A really interesting YouTuber that really knows how to “manual test” is Josh from Let’s Game It Out.

Josh pushes games he plays to their absolute limits in ways that developers could never have intended. He really knows how to mess with the system, which is essentially what a manual tester (more accurately exploratory tester) should be doing on a daily basis.

If you’re a tester, you should watch his channel to see how he does error guessing and essentially breaks the game Raft:

Types of Manual Testing

There are so many different types of test, but any tests can be manual tests if you're doing it manually.

In other words, manual testing is only an approach to testing. Its counterpart is automation testing, where testers write scripts to perform the test on their behalf.

However, there are some types of tests that can't be automated. They are:

Usability Testing: checking user experience factors such as ease of navigation and design intuitiveness
Exploratory Testing: there is no predefined items to test. With exploratory testing, testers rely on their intuition and experience to spot issues through freeform investigation.
Ad-hoc Testing: similar to exploratory testing, it is conducted on-the-fly to check for unexpected bugs.
Visual Testing: checking visual issues like image misalignment or color discrepancies.
Accessibility Testing: checking the functionality of assistive technologies embedded in the application. These technologies (such as screen readers, Braille display, color blindness simulators) improve the UX of physically challenged people.

All of these technologies can't be automated (at least with the current technology) due to their highly unpredictable nature.

Manual Testing vs Automation Testing

Manual testing and automation testing should not be mutually exclusive. Instead, they should complement each other.

Both have their own strengths and weaknesses. The choice to use which between them depends on factors such as project size, complexity, frequency of testing, available resources, and the specific goals of testing.

In practice, a combination of both manual and automation testing often yields the best results. Manual testing is used for exploratory and usability aspects while automation testing is used for for repetitive and resource-intensive tasks.

You can have a look at the table below to better understand the differences between the 2 approaches:

Aspect	Manual Testing	Automation Testing
Tester Involvement	Human testers execute test cases manually.	Automated tools execute test cases automatically.
Test Case Execution	Test cases executed manually without tools.	Test cases executed by automation scripts.
Suitable for	Exploratory testing, usability testing,	Regression testing, performance testing,
Testing Types	Ad-hoc testing, small projects.	Large-scale testing, repetitive tasks.
Human Intervention	Requires human intervention for each test case.	Limited human intervention after script setup.
Error Prone	Prone to human errors and subjectivity.	Reduces human errors, increases repeatability.
Project Scale	Suitable for small projects or when test cases change frequently.	Suitable for large and complex projects with consistent requirements.
Efficiency	Time-consuming for repetitive or large-scale testing.	Efficient for repetitive tasks and regression testing.
Initial Setup	Simpler initial setup; doesn't require scripting skills.	Initial setup requires scripting skills and may take longer.
Adaptability	Offers more flexibility in adapting to changes.	Less adaptable to changes in the application.
Speed of Execution	Slower compared to automated testing.	Faster test execution once scripts are set up.

Benefits of Manual Testing

1. Manual testing allows for more human input

To be human is to be creative and intuitive, and in certain types of testing those 2 factors are a must-have.

For example, in exploratory testing, testers have to actively explore and interact with the software to “get to know” the application before deep-diving into the details. It is proven that this approach allows testers to uncover bugs that they don't even know of in the first place.

Research on the effectiveness of Exploratory Testing

It is a free-style approach with no rules, no specifications, no documentation, only the tester simultaneously learning about the product and pinpointing potential areas for further testing.

Manual testing allows us to ask questions like “What if I do it this way?” - and this liberty of experimentation is something automation testing just won’t be able to deliver.

2. Manual testing leaves room for changing requirements

Software development is dynamic, with requirements often evolving, and manual testers can quickly adjust their approach to meet these changes.

For example, initially, testers might only need to verify the login functionality using valid usernames and passwords. But if the requirement shifts to include password strength checks, manual testers can easily try different password combinations—such as adding capital letters, special characters, or meeting a length requirement—to see how the system reacts.

In contrast, automation testing requires updating scripts, adjusting test data, re-running tests, and analyzing results, which can be time-consuming and technically challenging.

3. Manual testing has lower learning curve than automated testing

To do manual testing is to experience the application in the same way an end user would, and almost anyone can become an end user.

Manual testers, of course, must have enough technical knowledge and experience to know how to best “break” the app, but other than that they don’t need programming skills or engineering expertise to create test scripts like an automation tester. The low learning curve of this approach allows teams to start testing quickly at limited resources.

4. Manual testing allows QA team to go beyond the happy path

The happy path is the ideal route through an application where everything works as expected, without errors. Automation testing often focuses on this path to confirm that the system functions correctly as designed.

However, manual testing explores the “unhappy path” by triggering errors and testing limits. QA teams use manual testing to simulate unexpected scenarios, like malformed data, missing fields, or system overloads, to ensure the application handles these situations gracefully.

5. Low maintenance cost

A huge roadblock to many automation testing adopters is the maintenance cost and effort.

Many companies cut automation out of their tech-stack to escape the need for constantly revising their automation test scripts when their code changes, or else their test scripts become obsolete and no longer reliable.

On the other hand, manual testing does not require any test maintenance: when a code update occurs, testers can adapt immediately.

Challenges Of Manual Testing

Limitations of Manual Testing

Despite all of the benefits mentioned above, manual testing still presents its own challenges. It is simple to see how manual execution of tasks gets progressively more resource-intensive as the project scales.

1. Time-consuming

Manual testing involves step-by-step checks, but it’s time-consuming and prone to human error. Regression testing is especially tedious if done manually, requiring repetitive checks—like re-testing a login feature after every code update.

Testing across multiple devices, browsers, and operating systems adds to the workload, often leading testers to prioritize and potentially miss smaller bugs.

2. Limited Test Reusability

Manual testers have to perform the same steps for the same tests over and over. In contrast, in automation testing, they can just click the Run button, sit back, and watch the machines do the work. They can even schedule the tests to automatically run at a certain time.

Not being able to reuse tests causes two problems:

Inconsistency: Manual testing depends on personal judgment, so testers may handle scenarios differently, leading to varied results.
Limited Scalability: More tests require more testers. While manual testing works well for small projects, larger projects benefit from a mix of manual and automated testing, where repetitive tests are automated and reused across runs.

3. Difficulty In Test Management

Without test management tools, manual testing can get disorganized, as there’s no consistent place to track test cases or scenarios, and results rely on each tester’s experience.

Some testers use Google Sheets for this. It works well because each row can represent a test step, with columns for pass/fail status, testing environment (browser + OS), and other details. Google Sheets also allows teams to easily collaborate on test plans and customize the sheet as needed.

In fact, Google Sheet has a default template for test management that everyone can immediately gain access to.

Test Case Management template on Google Sheets for manual testing

It was good, at first, for basic needs. But once again, when the project scales, managing everything on a single spreadsheet gets unnecessarily complicated, and having dozens of testers simultaneously tampering with the spreadsheet is just a hassle, especially when a function gets modified and all cells return an error. By this point, you would wish you have a more dedicated system designed for test management.

A good test management goes beyond what Google Sheet offers:

Test case versioning
Traceability
Text execution tracking
Test report capabilities
Lack of native integration with other testing tools and systems
JIRA integration for advanced test management (Agile boards, issue history, issue dependencies, change tracking, comprehensive dashboard view, facilitated communication between stakeholders, etc.)
Large test suite management
Advanced access control (role-based access control, test suite or module-level permissions, workflow-based access control)

How To Do Manual Testing?

No matter what approach testers choose, they all have to follow the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC). The major difference lies in the execution step: either executing tests manually or automatically.

Software Testing Life Cycle by Katalon

Analyze Requirements: stakeholders sit together and discuss to understand the project goals and testing objectives to set the foundation for all testing activities.
Create a Test Plan: from that discussion, the QA manager create a test plan. It is a detailed documentation of what area to cover in the test, how to test, what technology is required, resources to be allocated, timeline, roadmap, contingency plans, and expected outcomes. This test plan is shared with stakeholders to ensure all team members are aligned with the vision and objectives before testing begins.
Set Up the Test Environment: Configure the necessary hardware, software, and tools to simulate the application's intended environment. For example, if the team wants to test the app on iOS, they need to prepare the right type of device with that environment.
Execute Test Cases: Follow the steps outlined in the plan to execute the tests. Of course, everything is done manually. Once done, testers record results in a bug management system.
Report and Collaborate: If there are any bugs, they report it back to the dev team for troubleshooting.

Just getting started with manual testing? Here is our lists of test cases for you:

How To Improve Your Manual Testing With Katalon?

Katalon Platform is a comprehensive quality management platform supporting test management for both manual testing and automation testing on web, API, mobile across a wide variety of environments, all in 1 place, with minimal engineering and programming skill requirements.

Katalon is a great addition to your manual testing techstack, helping you manage your day-to-day testing activities such as preparing test cases, executing them, storing results, robust report generation for analytics, bug tracking, import/export test cases, and even JIRA integration for project management. It gives you the capabilities of all of the tools you use everyday with specific customization for testing.

For example, for test planning, once you have activated Katalon TestOps, you can create a test project and schedule a test release, with detailed information on test case status, start date, and release date. If you have a JIRA integration, you can click the “Populate JIRA release” button to import your existing JIRA test plan.

This integration allows for seamless synchronization of manual testing activities with bug tracking, project management, and other related tools, enabling better alignment between testing and development teams.

Katalon Smart Test Reporting for manual testing

You can easily add your test cases in Katalon TestOps. The folders are displayed in a tree view in the left sidebar. Below is the Project Dashboard for the Web UI Tests Project for an eCommerce website, and in the Test Cases folder you can find the Order and check out a single product test case.

Sample manual test case management in Katalon

You can click on the test case to edit its details.

Test case editing

For reports on your manual testing efforts, Katalon highlights your testing activities with real-time data, which is categorized into 3 components: profile coverage (categorized by test profiles), execution trend (number of tests executed/passed/failed by day/week/month), and platform coverage (Mac, OS). These reports can all be shared automatically via email to the relevant stakeholders of your choice.

Katalon Test Run Report categorized by Profile Coverage

Manual Test reporting in Katalon Platform

In addition to all of that, Katalon has a Slack - Microsoft Teams integration to allow you to send test reports to a Slack/Teams channel for enhanced collaboration and communication, resulting in a unified testing approach.

If you want to experience the Katalon Platform, there is a Free Forever version and 30-day Free Trial that allows you to fully enjoy its capabilities.

Start Testing With Katalon Platform Free Trial

FAQs

1. How do you prioritize manual vs automation testing?

The decision to prioritize manual or automation testing is based on factors like:

Project complexity
Testing goals and objectives
Repetitive testing tasks
Available resources and expertise
Time constraints

A general rule of thumb is that test cases with higher complexity and low repetitiveness should be conducted manually to ensure that there is human input to the test, while repetitive test cases are generally automated so that testers can focus on other value-generating activities

2. Does manual testing require coding?

Manual testing does not require coding skills. Testers manually execute test cases and validate software functionality without writing code.

3. What is test scenarios in manual testing?

Test scenarios in manual testing are detailed descriptions of possible interactions, conditions, and actions that users might undertake with the software. They guide testers in conducting tests, ensuring various functionalities are adequately validated.

4. What is user story in manual testing?

A user story in manual testing is a concise, informal description of a feature's functionality from an end user's perspective. It helps testers understand the context and purpose of testing, enabling effective test case creation.

5. How to test a website using manual testing?

To test a website manually, testers navigate through its various pages, functionalities, and features. They validate links, forms, user interactions, responsiveness, and visual aspects. Additionally, they perform boundary tests, input validations, and compatibility checks across browsers and devices.

Read More: A Complete Web QA Checklist