In today's fast-moving mobile market, you don't have time for manual testing. Slow and mistake-prone manual tests can cost a company hundreds of thousands of dollars. Eliminating manual testing completely is not realistic, but if your company is not doing at least 50% automated testing, you'll struggle to keep app defects from reaching the hypercritical eyes of consumers. Here are five downfalls of continuing to do the majority of your tests manually.

1. 5 Downfalls of
Manual Testing

2. Like it or not, you don't have time for manual testing. In today's fast-moving mobile market,
slow and mistake-prone manual tests can cost a company hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Eliminating manual testing completely is not realistic – user interface tests for "look and
feel" still benefit from manual testing. But if your company is not doing at least 50%
automated testing, you'll struggle to keep app defects from reaching the hypercritical eyes
of consumers.
Here are five downfalls of continuing to do the majority of your tests manually.

3. Manual tests are error-prone
For any type of manual test, there's a greater chance of
mistakes simply because of human error.
Sometimes, testers make errors because the test cases are
tedious and repetitive. In another scenario, testers do not
understand the details and dependencies of the software or
the test may depend on installing third party apps and the
tester is not aware of it.
Whatever the reason, testing errors can damage a company's
brand if buggy apps go live.

4. Your ‘time to market’ will fall behind
We estimate that manual tests take five times longer to execute
than automated tests. This inevitably leads to teams missing
release date deadlines and experiencing time-to-market delays.
TTM delays not only prevent you from keeping up with market and
customer demands, but will slow down the continuity of an Agile
workflow. In the end, app quality itself suffers as the building and
testing of new features falls behind schedule.
Read more here: How to Speed Up Your Mobile Testing Cycles

5. Device/OS coverage not broad enough
New devices and operating system versions release at a rapid
pace each quarter. So test coverage needs to be broad as well
as fast.
Given that automated tests can run on 10 devices in parallel and
be repeated, while manual tests can only be done on one device
at a time, an automated testing strategy will cover more
platforms in much less time. This broad and fast approach is key
to staying ahead of the crowded mobile market.
Read more here: Are You Testing on the Right Digital Platforms?

6. Manual testing too sloooow for mobile
Mobile is a two-platform world – Android and iOS. With manual
testing, it's slow and laborious to test on the various versions of
Android and iOS because you can only do one manual test per
platform.
On the other hand, one automation script can run across
multiple platforms over and over, saving time and resources.
Read more here: 3 Benefits of Replacing Manual Testing with Automation

7. Testing capabilities are minimal
The fact is: manual tests are very basic compared to
automated tests. Today's complex mobile user environments
require sophisticated tests that manual testing alone cannot
deliver.
Tests for high user load and for user conditions such as apps
running in the background, phone call interruptions and
changes in location can only be done at high speed and scale
through automated testing.
Read more here: 7 Mobile Test Automation Best Practices

8. Additional resources to help move from manual testing to automation:
Webinar: Selenium Automation Like You’ve Never Seen It
Resources page: All You Need to Know About Selenium
Ebook: The Ultimate Digital Test Coverage Guide
Blog post: Connecting Test Automation to Specific App Features and Devices
Blog post: Selecting the Best Open-Source Test Automation Tool for You

9. For more information about the
advantages of test automation, visit
perfectomobile.com