Scripted manual testing / exploratory testing
Two ways humans test: following a written checklist step by step, or learning, designing, and running tests at once under a charter.
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What it is
Scripted manual testing is a human walking a written list: step, step, expected result, tick. Anyone can run it, two people get the same answer, and it produces an audit trail, which is why regulated and release-checklist work lives here. Exploratory testing is the opposite posture: learning the product, designing tests, and running them at the same time, with each result steering the next move. It is directed work, not wandering. A charter says what you are hunting, and what you observe decides where you go next. Cem Kaner named it; session-based test management (the Bach brothers) gives it structure with timeboxed sessions, a written charter, and notes.
Use both, for different jobs. Scripted passes verify that known behavior still holds. Exploratory sessions find the bugs nobody thought to write a step for: the double submit, the back button mid-payment, the 400-character name, the tab left open overnight. New features and risky refactors deserve an exploratory hour before they deserve a checklist.
Gotcha: exploratory testing is not 'unprepared clicking'. Without a charter ('30 minutes on file upload edge cases') and notes as you go, you cannot say what you covered or reproduce what you broke. And any scripted pass a human has run five times is a script the human now skims: automate it and give the person back to exploration.
Ask AI for it
Write two QA artifacts for the new invoice editor. First, a scripted manual test pass: numbered steps with preconditions, exact actions, and expected result per step, covering the happy path and the three main error states, formatted as a table a non-engineer can follow. Second, four exploratory testing charters in the form 'explore X with Y to discover Z', each timeboxed to 30 minutes, aimed at edge cases the script cannot cover: interrupted flows, unusual input lengths, permissions, and stale or concurrent sessions. Include a notes template for recording what was covered and what looked suspicious.