How do testers do it? An exploratory study on manual testing practices

We present the results of a qualitative observation study on the manual testing practices in four software development companies. Manual testing practices are seldom studied, and based on the literature we conjecture that they have a strong effect on the effectiveness of manual testing. We observed testing sessions of 11 software professionals performing system level functional testing. As a result we identified 22 manual testing practices that we classified into 9 test session strategies and 13 detailed test execution techniques. Many of the identified techniques were based on similar ideas as traditional test case design techniques. However, the subjects applied these techniques during manual testing without separate test design phase. The results indicate that software professionals use a wide set of strategies and techniques when performing manual testing. Testers seem to need and use techniques even if applying exploratory testing.