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Manual software testing is an older solution to software bugs. There are two angles one can look at manual software testing. We will examine both to help you understand what it is and how it is useful. Manual software testing is performed by an employee or consultant to a software company. This person will examine the software trying to find any issues it might have during the implementation process through hard use.

The typical user of a software program will not be as thorough or hard on most software. Therefore, when the program is subjected to difficult tests it shows what the breaking point could be. Manual testers are looking for the source code before they move on to see if the program can be validated. Manual software testing is slow and it can be costly. Sometimes the manual testing does not scale properly because the tester is using a highly developed machine that a normal user would not have.

Quite often manual testing is not going to be repeatable or consistent. In addition, many who obtain positions in manual software testing are not trained. Qualifications are needed for testing, but some companies hire out to independent sources to save money rather than pay a tester in their company. These are definitely the downsides to testing.

There is an automated testing option. It is considered less expensive, easier to complete, and even repeatable. The computer automation is also supposed to be able to find more problems than the human brain. However, each has their limits. A manual software testing employee may be hindered by their vision, whereas a computer can be limited by its programming.

Despite the downsides to manual software testing there are still numerous companies that will use it and the automated testing together. It is more about quality in these companies than getting a product to the market. Video game testers for example are manual software testers as they look for bugs the games might have. Even automated testing still requires users, though it is through graphical user interfaces that the testing is done, with users sending in reports.