In app development, there is a necessary phase called performance test. What you do in this phase is try to make a good view of what future users of your app will do simultaneously and see what kind of response will it give.
Will it crash when used by multiple users. Which actions (swipe, click, touch, etc.) will generate stress more on the app? How many users can it handle at the same time?
So, working with a testing company, you will identify the kind of performance the app will give by applying some performance testing procedures. This is to make sure you generate customer satisfaction and prevent issues that will put your revenue down.
Performance Testing
Differences in load affect app systems differently. For the performance test, there are many ways to do it, but usually, the amount of load is the deciding factor. The higher the load is, the higher is the stress. Under what amount of load (meaning the number of users) will the app’s system crash?
Apart from the quantity of load, there are other quantities to measure. There is the response speed of the app. Will it load pages quickly under a certain load, or can it smoothly transition from one page to another, or from one episode to another.
There is also the case about loading time, and also stability, and endurance. These are just some of the factors being investigated.
Performance Testing for Software
In software development tests, we are mostly talking about system responsiveness and stability. How good does the app perform in those areas when under a particular workload?
There could be a problem in stability of the app if people who have already used or intended to use it decided to uninstall it. According to research, one provider can easily lose 53% of users when his app crashes multiple times, which can make customers lose critical data.
On the side of responsiveness, the worst thing that can happen is that the screen displays the ANR dialog (Application Not Responsive). In order to prevent responsiveness issues, you may need to test on all screen sizes or check the flexibility of the layout.
Apart from these two important factors, we also seek to assess elements such as usage of resources and scalability.
The test benefits you as developer in other ways, including:
- Identification of parts where there is bad performance
- Satisfy industry standard
- If you have 2 systems to compare, the test will help you know which one performs better
Experts suggest proper goal setting so appropriate tests can be employed in accordance with the goal.
So, your first question would be: What is my purpose? Then: how can the test help me achieve such goal?
Testing Types
There are many types of performance testing, including:
- Load testing – this is the simplest type of testing
- Stress testing – testing the limit capacity
- Internet testing – testing the system in terms of global applications such as Google and Facebook
- Breakpoint testing – akin to stress testing, but loads are applied in increments
- Isolation testing – repeated testing to determine the fault in a domain
- Configuration testing – checking the effects of configuration changes
- Spike testing – used to check system behavior after a significant increase or decrease in load
- Soak testing – checking if the system can handle expected load that is continuously applied
Load Test
Based on the preceding sections, this test is defined as a type that calibrates the capacity to handle real-life load situations. For specific real-life situations, here are some examples where this test is particularly needed:
- Downloading files from the internet, especially large files
- Running several applications or server simultaneously
- Server receiving large amounts of e-mail traffic
Stress Test
On the other hand, it is the robustness of a system that is measured via stress testing. Robustness refers to the system’s behavior under pressure, and under pressure, in this sense, means a condition where there are too many users and too much data being processed at the same time.
In stress testing, the upper load limit is not the threshold of a break; rather, it is above the threshold of a break. Thus, what we are testing here is robustness, along with stability. Some would say that stress testing is also a way to ensure a system’s security.
