With the rise of AI-driven automation, is manual testing becoming obsolete? We often see a skill gap in teams that rely too much on manual checks instead of building robust automated frameworks. Is it time to stop prioritizing manual experience on resumes?
3 answers
Manual testing is frequently labeled as "dying," but I argue that exploratory manual testing is more vital than ever. Automation handles the repetitive stuff, but it doesn't have the human intuition to find "weird" edge cases. However, if your only skill is following a spreadsheet of 500 manual steps, then yes, that is overrated and risky. You need to understand the architecture. I’ve seen teams automate everything and still miss basic UI glitches that a human would have caught in seconds.
If we move entirely to automation, how do we ensure the user experience remains intuitive and not just "functionally correct"?
Total automation is a myth. Manual oversight is necessary to validate that the automation scripts are even testing the right things.
Spot on, Laura. Without a human to vet the logic, automation just lets you fail at a much faster rate than before.
That is a great point, Gregory. Automation is binary—it passes or fails based on code. It cannot tell you if a button placement feels "clunky" or if the user flow is confusing. A hybrid approach where manual testing focuses on UX while automation handles logic is the only way to maintain high quality.