Five steps to user centric performance testing

Andrew Holt discusses performance testing with TestPlant CTO Antony Edwards

The software world has undergone a revolution during the last decade as a result of the Cloud, consumerization, DevOps, IoT and micro-services architectures to name a few. Consequently, digital teams are struggling to deliver high-quality digital experiences that delight users in a way that is fast and efficient.

These changes have broken the established assumptions and foundations around traditional testing approaches and outlined that a new approach to testing; and most critically test automation; is needed in order to thrive in a digital world.

“The performance of a product is the most important factor influencing user experience. If you don’t get it right it will negatively impact user adoption, conversion, retention and ultimately revenue generation. Put simply, performance is user experience,” commented TestPlant CTO Antony Edwards.

He added: “At TestPlant we believe that the current standard approach to performance testing is fundamentally flawed and that this is having a huge negative impact on both the user-experience of digital services and IT teams’ ability to keep up with continuous delivery and DevOps.

“Whether it’s mobile app or IoT device usage, web page stickiness, or enterprise application adoption you are trying to achieve, testing teams must learn new approaches to ensure app responsiveness. We need a truly integrated approach that includes testing the impact of every interaction, focusing on the user experience.”

Based on its industry experience and knowledge across a range of industries from banking to aerospace, TestPlant developed five principles which have become the foundation for delivering high-quality ‘digital user experiences’ for users in a way that is fast and efficient.

The TestPlant focus for testing is:

  1. Test through the eyes of the user
  2. Test all aspects of the user experience
  3. Monitoring is testing
  4. Extend automation and analytics beyond test execution
  5. Report test status in terms of the user experience

By applying this new approach to performance testing you:

  • Get a true understanding of the real user experience
  • Make performance testing far more accessible to non-experts
  • Accelerate performance testing significantly so that you can keep up with DevOps
  • Enable a coherent performance testing strategy pre-production and post-production

“The goal of this new approach is about delivering a better user experience to drive customer adoption, conversion, retention, and of course revenue,” added Edwards.

If you want to find out more about performance testing in a digital world then you can join the TestPlant webinar on Thursday 29 June. In this session attendees will take a deep-dive into performance testing and showcase TestPlant’s new approach.

  • How poorly integrated performance testing approaches impact user engagement and usageDiscover why and how the user needs to be at the centre of your performance testing approaches:
  • How to avoid losing sight of the end-users and focus instead on their experience as the best proxy for performance
  • How testers are the most important user experience designers in your company

If you want to find out more about performance testing in a digital world then you can join the TestPlant webinar on Thursday 29 June.

Written by Andrew Holt

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