How To Test A Website For Performance

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1 Can Performance Testing of Web Applications help overcome e-business problems? White Paper

2 Introduction E-Shopping sites provide a convenient online way of purchasing for the people anytime from anywhere in the world. These websites must be able to handle sudden increases in traffic for quick and accurate business transactions without compromising on the user experience. In this paper, we will discuss the importance of web application performance and explore the various business problems. Along with this, we ll provide an overview of industry-leading performance validation solution of ClicTest. Every second counts when you re doing business online There are an ever growing number of e-retail companies that are seriously worried about their roller-coaster ride in business. These firms are seriously looking forward to improve the quality, reliability and speed of their web applications through performance testing services offered by software testing firms. A high-performing website helps in reaping better revenues Not only e-retail companies, there are many enterprises which are reliant on their online business platforms and are not able to reap adequate profits because their web applications are not loading up quickly. Going by the many performance issues in web applications, there seems to be one common confusion about how to measure and analyze a web application s performance. When measuring performance, a QA team is primarily concerned with identifying the response time that a user experiences. For most web applications, the response time is dominated by the time to download all of the features on the page. As pages have become more and more complex, their sizes have enlarged as well it is very common to see pages of 0.5 MB or more. Based on the location of a user, it can take a substantial amount of time for the browser to fetch all the features from across the internet. There are many free and paid testing tools available in the market which is making more difficult for the enterprises to understand which tool will best suit their testing needs. However, to get a precise measure of end user experience on web applications, performance needs to be measured from the various points on the internet where your users are typically located.

3 The main goal of measuring performance is to understand the maximum load and stress of the traffic that a web application can handle. Traditionally, firms perform load testing of their applications to ensure scalability. It is also commonly known as scalability testing. Many applications are driven into production before any scalability testing is performed. Things may seem all right until the day the application is subjected to huge traffic. In such case, a web application crashes suddenly because it cannot handle the increased load. Another concern with performance testing project is how much value the testing provides. In the age of Cloud computing, high performance attributes for a web application is no more a luxury. Rather, it s now a basic necessity for business innovation and growth. Keeping this fact in mind, it is an absolute must for every software development firm to incorporate effective best practices into their application development processes and validate the performance of application before the application goes live. A software development firm needs to identify & fix performance bottlenecks, assess capacity of their applications and estimate their application s capability to support predicted user loads in varied infrastructure configurations. A website needs to handle sudden increase in traffic to avoid crash Sometimes, a large number of online consumers try to access a web application at the same time and use a particular feature of a web application at the same time. If that particular feature cannot load and make the consumers wait for a long period of time due to heavy load, this can lead to severe business problems. Any business cannot afford problems like these because every second counts when business is being done online. Never let a customer lose patience and emphasize on Load and Stress Testing An effective strategy and process has to be defined for Performance Testing of an application to unearth the performance issues and assist developers in fixing the root causes of performance bottlenecks. The effect of slow performance of an application can result in many business issues. B2C applications that deliver adequate performance and high page speeds always helps to reap better revenue. On the other hand, slow performance of an application causes significant revenue loss along with reduced customer satisfaction and damages the brand reputation. Enterprises rely on web applications to make their workflows more efficient to reap better productivity. Slow performance of applications and slow page loads will have negative impact which will cause substantial slowdown in the business processes. If such behavior of an application persists for longer period, it forces users to abandon the application and switch to other better performing applications. Performance testing is a highly important element to be conducted before any software product is launched or delivered to the client. Rigorously and effectively tested software products can ensure customer satisfaction, retention, loyalty and finally helps in creating substantial brand equity. The online entrepreneurs that face stiff competition from their counterparts need quick and responsive websites that can keep visitors engaged. It became imperative for

4 businesses to address the performance challenges of their web applications in the fastest possible time. An adept performance testing strategy that identifies bottlenecks and different areas of performance should be adopted. Performance testing should be on the agenda during the initial stages of design and development. Most web applications show better performance as long as they are used by few users. But what would happen if huge number of users work on the application at the same time? At this point, Load and Stress Testing become a crucial element. There are several reasons to do Performance Testing. There is no 100% assurance that multiuser web application makes all its features and functions available to all its users. So, it is important to find maximum performance faults in an application to avoid business problems. Online customers expect efficient and reliable services at all times Slow websites cause problems to users and drive them to consider alternatives The advanced world of Web applications has changed the way online entrepreneurs promote, market and sell their products besides automating crucial business processes. The web applications have made it easier and faster to submit orders, process payments and track data. The large volumes of data collected by Web applications can assist enterprises define more effective marketing strategies and target specific customers. But as more enterprises rely on Web applications for operating their businesses and yielding revenues, the risk of failures due to performance issues becomes more. In this early age of e-commerce, most enterprises are not keen on investing any time in pre-production performance testing which is important in isolating application problems and avoiding downtime in business-critical web applications. Generally, the enterprises perform manual testing expecting their infrastructure to support the user load once the application goes live. It is not uncommon to see a website going down or crashing immediately after websites are upgraded or when the peak load hits the website but businesses can t afford to bear any interruption as the online-savvy customers expect efficient and reliable services at all times. Optimal performance increases business value Enterprises are not only limited to providing online services to their clients but also use the web platform to totally run their businesses. This extensive use and growing value of online services also demand hassle free delivery. A study says that online consumers will abandon a site after waiting for 3 seconds for a page to load. Slow performing applications have direct negative impact on business performance. Increasingly, many online enterprises realized that to deliver a complete digital experience to the consumers and avoid any business problems, they need to increase their web applications page speed and improve the load time.

5 This is why performance testing is becoming a major responsibility for the QA teams. Performance testing requires a lot of planning and understanding of how the components interact and what the user expects from an application. The testing strategy should mimic the real life environment. To identify the performance bottlenecks, it is very important to start with individual components rather than focusing on the whole module of a web application. Though it is time consuming, it will save a lot of effort and money. To drive more sales and boost brand image, online businesses are increasingly dependent on complex technologies such as shopping tools, interactive games and videos. These items hold attention or interest of the visitors and drive them toward the virtual shopping carts. But if a web application holds performance issues, then it is difficult to run marketing and sales strategies. Within no time, these issues will make the enterprises land in serious business problems. It is understood that poor availability and page-load times have a quick negative impact on the customer experience. An optimized site will always beat the non-optimized site in key metrics of visitor engagement. If there is any increase of average time on site of the visitors, it would be only due to faster load times. Internet users abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Performance optimization can improve the conversion rates and the order value. Clearly, improving the technical execution of a web application would have a striking impact on business effectiveness but still, some enterprises view the web application performance in different ways. Business stakeholders are measuring site performance by page views, bounce rates and conversion rates with tools such as Google Analytics. The technology professionals are watching site availability and response time metrics. Ultimately, both IT professionals and the business stakeholders are looking for one common thing: a set of metrics that connects performance to business outcomes. Depending on the results of the performance testing, necessary actions to be taken to fill the gap between the actual and expected results. Like precise measurement is the key for the success of any procedure, precise results from performance testing activity can never be achieved without well-defined success criteria. An approach for testing performance One of the best ways to avoid issues with slow performance in an application is to share the awareness on performance aspects of the application ahead of SDLC by participating in requirement gathering sessions. Performance Testing should be started in parallel to SDLC. By consolidating the inputs from stakeholders and technical team, performance issues can be reduced. Most of the clients don t have dedicated test environments for performance testing due to budget constraints. In this case, performance testing should be done on cloud which is very efficient in terms of highly effective testing and saves a lot of money. When it comes to Performance Testing Tool selection, a right decision has to be made on selecting the tool as there are many commercial and open source tools

6 available in the market. A combination of automation and manual testing approach will help to get productive results. Addressing the performance issues by finding bottlenecks ClicTest provides a reliable and efficient performance testing solution for enterprises of all sizes. Its comprehensive performance testing solution can help businesses to meet the testing needs. ISVs and development firms can approach ClicTest for a customized and cost-effective software testing solution. Highly effective performance testing can be carried out by using the extremely powerful dynamic ramp adjustment solution provided by ClicTest. In this way, a testing team can easily find all the performance issues and bottlenecks in their applications and accelerate product time to market. Conclusion Slow loading websites cause drop in sales Ignoring testing an application for performance issues can lead to serious business problems as user experience on an application plays a key role in reaping revenue and increasing organization s credibility. Going with the traditional performance testing approach may also lead to an increase in the testing effort and costs. An effective performance testing can find quality aspects in a web application such as scalability, reliability and resource utilization. In an application world, it s very important for the online entrepreneurs to ensure that their application is well tested for its reactivity in terms of its stability, i.e. how much pressure it can handle when there is a high load. The effective testing of an application is more important as the entrepreneurs need to be prepared for any unexpected traffic which could help them in growing their business and brand image. About ClicTest ClicTest is a fast emerging product-enabled Independent Software Testing Company. It helps enterprises to easily access its web-based testing solution on internet and instantly initiate testing activities. ClicTest also provides cloud platform for on-demand functional testing, Performance testing and Security testing of web applications. ClicTest provides an Automated Testing Solution. With this, one can easily perform testing without the need of any of any technical knowledge. This allows enterprises to save a significant amount of testing turnaround time. Eventually, software testers can easily generate consolidated and stake holder based test reports in graphical and grid views which enable the clients in taking strategic decisions towards development of the web applications. To know more about ClicTest Services and Solutions, please visit or write to us at info@clictest.com.