Performance Testing Challenges & How to Deal with Them
Today, the customers determine the quality of the app based on the performance it delivers. If the customer faces any issues chances are high that the customer will either stop using the app or will switch to competitors’ platform. This is where performance testing is needed as it helps teams to ensure that the product performs as expected. There are certain challenges associated with this testing type but by following some best practices mentioned in this article those challenges can be dealt with. Let us now look at this testing method in more detail.
What is performance testing?
It is a non-functional type of software testing method which is performed to determine how the system performs under varying conditions. The main aim of this test is to check the responsiveness, speed, and stability of the software. It ensures that software is free from all performance-related bottlenecks. This test typically ensures that the application performs as expected irrespective of the conditions like network fluctuations, bandwidth availability, or traffic load.
Why is performance testing required?
This test is required due to following reasons:
· To check the speed, scalability, reliability, and stability of the software under varying load conditions
· To ensure that the apps load spontaneously and perform seamlessly
· To check whether the server responds to the user with requested data within the stipulated time or not i.e. to check the server response time
· To enhance customer experience (CX) as teams ensure that high-quality and high-performing software is delivered to end-users
What are the challenges of performance testing?
1. Difficulty in deciding the testing tool
It is one of the most common challenges as the tool selection depends on various factors like business requirements, technology stack, skill-level of testers, licensing cost of the tool, etc. Selection of the wrong tool can result in loss of testing days and efforts; therefore it is very essential to select the tool very carefully
2. Lack of proper planning
Before starting the test it is very important to prepare a test plan, test strategy so that the task can be identified and prioritized. Lack of proper test strategy results in insufficient test coverage and it becomes difficult to get effective test results.
3. Lack of knowledge about the need for performance tests
Most business owners, stakeholders, and budget makers do not recognize the value of performance testing during software development. Due to this post-production release of the software, many performance issues may crop up which result in the crashing of the website, app, or software.
4. Difficulty in analysing test outcomes
It is very important to analyse the test results accurately. But if teams face challenges in analysing the test results accurately then it might create problems for stakeholders as they will face difficulty in making informed decisions.
How to deal with performance testing challenges?
· The QA teams should properly evaluate the application under test (AUT) along with the licensing cost to select the best testing tool for performance testing
· The teams should analyse and understand application architecture and characteristics like load distribution, usage model, the geography of usage, availability requirements, resilience requirements, reliability requirements, technology stack, etc.
· A proper and clear testing plan & strategy should be developed to achieve effective test results.
· Businesses need to properly decide timeframe and allocate resources, and budget
· The stakeholders, product owners, or test architects need to plan for performance testing as part of an end-to-end testing strategy.
· The testing activities should ideally be planned in a production-like environment instead of the actual production environment.
Conclusion: High-performing software that performs as expected under all load conditions is the need of an hour. To achieve this companies adopt various types of testing methods to test the quality or reliability of their software. One such software testing type is performance testing. Leverage performance testing from a next-gen QA and software performance testing services provider to get high-quality software that works well under all load conditions and delivers a seamless experience to the users.
About the author: I am a technical content writer and I write articles on various IT-related topics. In this article, I have tried to share my views on performance testing challenges and how to deal with them.