There are some testers who say there’s no such thing as manual and automated testing.
While I wouldn’t go to that extreme, I do feel that thinking just in terms of “manual” and “automated” testing can often make your testing strategy feel disconnected and siloed.
However, thinking more holistically and aligning these two testing approaches is critical for ensuring consistent functionality and a high-quality product.
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I recently spoke with Javier Alejandro Re, CEO of Crowdar and Founder of Lippia.io. about this very concept, and I’d like to share his insights on how to harmonize manual and automated testing for better efficiency.
Testing Correlation
One of the key challenges Javier highlights is maintaining a correlation between the test scenarios executed by the manual QA team and what gets automated.
As the manual testers add new scenarios, the automation needs to be updated accordingly, and vice versa. Good communication between teams makes this possible, but it can be difficult to keep that synchronization clean and smooth when using different formats and tools.
This is where Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) and the Gherkin language come into play.
Why use BDD for Testing?
Gherkin provides a natural language format using keywords like Given, When, and Then to describe the behavior of the system. By writing test scenarios in Gherkin, the whole team—
including product owners, developers, and testers—can use a common language to discuss requirements and expected functionality.
Javier has found that when his team uses Gherkin to automate tests, they can easily re-use those same scenarios to manually replicate and troubleshoot issues. This realization led to writing Gherkin from the beginning of the testing process, regardless of whether the tests would eventually be automated or not.
Why BDD can be Challenging.
However, getting manual testers accustomed to using a development environment or code repository was a challenge.
To address this, Javier and his team at Crowdar created a tool called Lippia to make it easier for testers to maintain a single source of truth for test scenarios.
Lippia connects to the code repository, collects all the Gherkin feature files, and allows them to be used like regular manual test cases.
Pretty cool, right?
Testers can report pass/fail statuses, while automated test results can also be injected into the same platform via an API. This enables combining manual and automated test results into a single dashboard, even across teams using different languages and frameworks for their automation.
Don’t Use Vendor Lock-in Testing Solutions
A key benefit of Lippia is that it is not a vendor lock-in solution.
The Gherkin feature files live in the code repository, so teams can continue using them even if they switch to a different platform in the future. The test scenarios are treated as assets, just like the application code.
When asked about Lippia’s future roadmap, Javier highlighted plans to further improve usability for testers, incorporate an open-source framework to write Gherkin tests for APIs without coding, and build adapters for smooth integration with various CI/CD and automation tools.
The API testing framework is already available on GitHub.
What else does the solution include?
Check out Lippia
There are two main pieces that make up Lippia.
One is the Lippia Framework and the other is the Test Manager.
The Lippia Framework is an all-in-one framework on GitHub that allow you to automate any type of app. Any what’s great about it is that it’s based on a set of the most popular Open Source components to allow you more freedom. For example, they have adaptors for tools like Cucumber, Karate, Playwright, Serenity, Cypress and more.
They also have the Test Manager piece that was developed to be an all-in-one platform to manage all your automated and functional testing. This is one area I see many teams struggling in having a true picture of all their testing efforts all in one place.
Watch this quick demo to see both pieces in action.
As you can see, it really is a set of tools designed to help you accelerate your software testing
For teams interested in getting started with Lippia, Javier recommends visiting lippia.io to request a demo or trial.
But more importantly, he advises looking at the bigger picture of BDD, not just as an automation solution, but as a process for better development that benefits the whole team.
By using a shared language to describe behavior, software can be better documented, tested, and developed in a collaborative manner.
Is BDD for Testing Still Relevant?
Adopting BDD practices and tools like Lippia requires a mindset shift and may feel like additional overhead at first. But the long-term benefits of aligning around a common framework for describing and verifying expected behavior are well worth the effort.
As Javier puts it, Gherkin and BDD are ultimately “a good combination of a tool for the whole team, not just for the testers.”
And because BDD is all about communication it will never go out of style when done correctly.
Check it out for yourself now and let me know what you think in the comments below.
