Exploratory Testing
In plain terms
Unscripted, investigative testing driven by the tester.
Going deeper
Exploratory testing has skilled testers simultaneously learn, design, and execute tests on the fly, uncovering issues scripts miss. It relies on human intuition.
Under the hood
Complements automation; effective for finding unexpected bugs and usability problems.
Examples
Manual testing, bug hunting, usability discovery, session-based testing.
Think of it like...
Like a detective freely investigating leads rather than following a fixed checklist.