Testing app performance is a daunting and time-consuming process. Without the right tools and resources, it’s difficult to get accurate results for all the necessary variables.
If your app isn’t performing up to standard, you could lose out on valuable customers and revenue. Improper testing can lead to disastrous results that impact your bottom line, not to mention your credibility.
Step-By-Step Implementation of Application Performance Testing can help you get the best results without wasting time or resources. With our structured process and easy-to-follow steps, you can be sure that every performance test is conducted accurately — quickly and effectively.
Read on and get peace of mind with our Step-By-Step Implementation of Application Performance Testingtoday!
Application performance testing
Application performance testing is one vital process in software development and there is no gain in saying that. It follows a process that helps developers identify and fix potential issues before they affect the user experience and cause customer dissatisfaction.
Application performance testing is designed and implemented to perform a check on the speed, stability, scalability, and reliability of an application under different conditions. This helps to ensure that the application works as expected in different scenarios, such as high traffic or extreme load.
Application performance testing should be an essential part of any software project as it can help identify potential problems before they become major. It also provides valuable insights into the application’s behaviour under various conditions so developers can make informed decisions about improving its overall performance.
Benefits of Application performance Testing
- Application performance testing is a crucial part of the software development process.
- This type of testing helps to ensure that an application is running as expected and meets all the requirements of its users.
- It also helps to identify any potential problems before they become too serious.
- Application performance testing can provide a range of benefits, such as reducing costs, improving customer experience, and increasing productivity.
- By analysing the performance of an application, it can help detect any issues that may arise in the future and allow developers to make necessary changes before they become costly problems. Additionally, it can also help identify areas where improvements can be made in order to increase efficiency and user satisfaction.
Mobile Application performance testing Strategies
Ensuring the trustworthiness and proper functionality of your app while users are using it is of utmost importance and effective mobile application performance testing strategies are essential for achieving this goal. These strategies play a crucial role in identifying any user experience issues and enhancing the overall effectiveness of the app before its release.
Mobile application performance testing strategies require comprehensive approaches that takes into account various aspects of the user experience, such as speed, stability, scalability, and usability.
There are several performance testing techniques available for mobile apps, including load testing, stress testing, compatibility testing, and more. These strategies should be utilised in a tailored manner, depending on the specific app and test scenario, to ensure optimal performance in real-world usage. You ready? Let’s go.
Performance testing best practices
Here are performance testing best practices to take note of.
Test Early and Often
Application performance testing best practices begins by testing early so that you can detect the issues and errors and go ahead to address them early enough that it does not cost you much. The performance testing process is usually well thought out and at best, proactive. You do not have to wait for user complaints or errors before you perform it. Follow up with rigorous performance testing throughout the development process and address the issues found before your app goes live.
As a performance testing best practice, the experts advise is that run performance unit test during the development process and repeat the test at the later stage of the app development process. You can utilise automation performance testing tools for this.
Consider Users as well as Servers
Performance testing best practices requires you to test the servers as well as the users too. This way there will be some good level of balance in your result and when the errors are addressed, you will have a good working app with excellent user experience.
As you carry out your performance tests, remember that your users are real people and not objects or robots. Measure all human elements so as to capture all issues affecting users and have them fixed at an early stage.
Understand Performance Test
Knowledge is power because it can put you ahead. This is true, even when dealing with performance related issues of your app. There are several important concepts and technical steps to implement during your testing phase, it is best practice of performance testing to have good knowledge of these performance techniques.
Some popular performance testing methods to be knowledgeable about include, but not limited to,
- Endurance (Soak) Tests
- Stress Tests
- High Availability Tests
- Single User Tests
- Load Tests
- Peak Load Tests
Create Your Performance Model
Another performance testing best practice is to build a complete performance model. This means you need to have a good understanding of your system’s capacity by measuring its performance strength. In measuring your metrics, take care of the following;
- What will be your steady state-based on users?
- What numbers of request do you anticipate as your lowest, medium and highest traffics?
- What is the strength of your server and how best can it be utilised?
- What will be your system’s scalability?
- What user satisfaction score are you targeting?
- What is your acceptance metrics?
Know Your Baselines for Important System Functions
There are usually differences between the performance of QA systems and those of production systems. Therefore, having your baseline performance for important system functions is an application performance testing best practice. This may require you to set different response time goals for each system since they may give you different results.
When you have clear baseline goals, you will not have to guess your results based on other app performance metrics.
Engage in Modular and System Performance Tests
It is best practice to do both modular and system performance tests, which means you will need to test databases, web services and servers, etc. For best results, perform your test at both individual and combined levels to have better insights on errors, issues, weaknesses and have better understanding on the best ways to tune your app performance.
Measure Averages and Outliers
Knowing your average response time is an important part of having a successful performance testing. In fact, However, it is an app performance best practice to include other metrics for optimal view of your app or system performance.
An expert advice on doing this is to set KPI’s and measure them using average standards.
Do Consistent Report and Analysis of the Results
When observing all the performance testing best practices, pay keen attention to reports and analysis of reports because they are also very important. When you rightly analyse and report the results of your test using the best methods, you can aways fix bugs and errors in the future. You also need to know what reports should go to managers, supervisors, the team, organisations, etc.
We would conclude this section by encouraging you to observe one more application performance testing best practice; not throwing your software over the wall and ensuring your QA team are made up of professionals. Remember that your team and your tools should be top notch as they both contribute in bringing in the required result.
Application performance testing: Step-by-Step Implementation
Below is a step-by-step implementation on application performance testing.
Device Performance
You should note that device performance is the most critical performance criterion for the app performance test. It is essential that the main screen of the program appears within a reasonable timeframe of 1-2 seconds after the user clicks on it. It is also important to test the behaviour of background-running applications to ensure they resume seamlessly from where they left off. Improper handling of such scenarios can result in data loss.
Furthermore, it is necessary to conduct testing on a variety of devices. It is not uncommon for an application to perform well on one device but encounter issues on another. This applies to both iOS and Android smartphones, as the testing process should account for the differences between these platforms. Additionally, the app should be designed to run smoothly without interfering with other concurrently running applications that may also require examination.
Client Application Performance
When considering the framework of the app during the application performance testing, two factors come into play: whether it is a native or browser-based application and the specific software and hardware setup of the device.
Regarding the device’s setup, it is important to account for the typical variations in models, memory, and processors, as well as how the app utilizes these resources during standard user scenarios. To ensure proper performance, the application should be tested across different specifications of RAM and processors, such as 1 GB or 2 GB, to account for the varying capabilities of devices.
Furthermore, certain functionalities implemented in the application can increase its memory utilization. Therefore, it is crucial to monitor the memory usage by the application during testing. This will help identify any potential memory-related issues that may impact the overall performance of the app.
Server/API Performance
When doing application performance testing, the server application needs to be able to identify the browser/device combination in order to accurately render the content.
When it comes to checking the server performance, it is similar to evaluating the performance of a website or web application. The analysis needs to be broken down into different components of the server that provide services, including the application server, database, and associated hardware.
The application should efficiently handle the data received from the server, ensuring that it doesn’t take excessive time to load information. In some applications, data is sent in a specific format and needs to be transformed into a meaningful format before displaying it in the application. However, this transformation process can sometimes introduce delays and increase the response time..
Furthermore, the number of server calls made by the testing application from the client side should be minimized. In case the server is down or unavailable, it is advisable to save the data in a local database. This way, even when the server is down, the application can display the data stored in the local database. The backup or failover server should be continuously replicated and synchronized with the primary server to ensure data consistency and availability.
Network Performance
During application performance testing, it is important to acknowledge that the app’s performance can indeed vary across different networks due to the impact of network protocols on delays and throughput. To ensure comprehensive testing, it is recommended to test the application on various networks with different speeds, including 2.5G, 3G, and 4G networks. This testing should encompass both mobile data networks and Wi-Fi networks.
Additionally, it is crucial to evaluate the behaviour of the app when both mobile data and Wi-Fi networks are available, as well as when network switching occurs. The app’s performance can be influenced by latency, which depends on the efficiency of its transmission technique algorithms and the amount of data being transmitted- often referred to as payload). Therefore, it is necessary to conduct performance testing that simulates network switching scenarios to assess the app’s responsiveness and reliability in such situations. By doing so, you can ensure that the app delivers satisfactory performance across various network conditions.
Gametesting
When there is a delay in data transmission on the network, it is referred to as a jitter. Jitter is commonly encountered in packet-switched or connectionless networks, where data is divided into packets and can take different paths from the sender to the recipient. As the packets reach their destination, they may arrive in a different order or with varying delays compared to how they were originally sent. It is crucial for a mobile application to effectively handle jitter.
In order to address jitter-related issues, the mobile application should be designed to handle such situations appropriately. This can involve displaying suitable warnings to the end user, informing them to either wait until the system responds again or providing an option to resend the request. By notifying the user about the network delay or jitter, the application helps manage their expectations and provides guidance on how to proceed.
Implementing appropriate warnings and user prompts can enhance the user experience and mitigate the impact of network-related delays, ensuring that the application remains responsive and functional even in the presence of jitter on the network.
In conclusion, application performance testing is an important aspect of app development. So if you would like to get the best app with user satisfaction, implement all the application performance best practices for your app and systems.
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