Types of Non-functional Testing

1. Performance Testing
2. Usability Testing
3. Compatibility Testing

1. Performance Testing

Performance Testing is a type of software testing that ensures software applications perform properly under their expected workload. It is a testing technique carried out to determine system performance in terms of sensitivity, reactivity, and stability under a particular workload. 

Performance testing is a type of software testing that focuses on evaluating the performance and scalability of a system or application. The goal of performance testing is to identify bottlenecks, measure system performance under various loads and conditions, and ensure that the system can handle the expected number of users or transactions.

Advantages of Performance Testing

• Performance testing ensures the speed, load capability, accuracy, and other performances of the system.
• It identifies, monitors, and resolves the issues if anything occurs.
• It ensures the great optimization of the software and also allows many users to use it at the same time.
• It ensures the client as well as the end-customer’s satisfaction. Performance testing has several advantages that make it an important aspect of software testing:
• Identifying bottlenecks: Performance testing helps identify bottlenecks in the system such as slow database queries, insufficient memory, or network congestion. This helps developers optimize the system and ensure that it can handle the expected number of users or transactions.

2. Usability Testing

You design a product (say a refrigerator) and when it becomes completely ready, you need a potential customer to test it to check it working. To understand whether the machine is ready to come on the market, potential customers test the machines. Likewise, the best example of usability testing is when the software also undergoes various testing processes which is performed by potential users before launching into the market. It is a part of the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

Advantages and Disadvantages of Usability Testing

Usability testing is preferred to evaluate a product or service by testing it with the proper users. In Usability testing, the development and design teams will use to identify issues before coding and the result will be earlier issues will be solved. During a Usability test, you can,

• Learn if participants will be able to complete the specific task completely.
• identify how long it will take to complete the specific task.
• Gives excellent features and functionalities to the product
• Improves user satisfaction and fulfills requirements based on user feedback
• The product becomes more efficient and effective

3. Compatibility Testing

Compatibility testing is software testing that comes under the non functional testing category, and it is performed on an application to check its compatibility (running capability) on different platforms/environments. This testing is done only when the application becomes stable. This means simply this compatibility test aims to check the developed software application functionality on various software, hardware platforms, networks browser etc. This compatibility testing is very important in product production and implementation point of view as it is performed to avoid future issues regarding compatibility.

Advantages of Compatibility Testing

• It ensures complete customer satisfaction.
• It provides service across multiple platforms.
• Identifying bugs during the development process.

There are 4 Types of Performance Testing

1. Load Testing
2. Stress Testing
3. Scalability Testing
4. Stability Testing

1. Load Testing

Load testing determines the behavior of the application when multiple users use it at the same time. It is the response of the system measured under varying load conditions.

1. The load testing is carried out for normal and extreme load conditions. 
2. Load testing is a type of performance testing that simulates a real-world load on a system or application to see how it performs under stress.
3. The goal of load testing is to identify bottlenecks and determine the maximum number of users or transactions the system can handle.
4. It is an important aspect of software testing as it helps ensure that the system can handle the expected usage levels and identify any potential issues before the system is deployed to production.

Advantages of Load Testing:

Load testing has several advantages that make it an important aspect of software testing:

1. Identifying bottlenecks: Load testing helps identify bottlenecks in the system such as slow database queries, insufficient memory, or network congestion. This helps developers optimize the system and ensure that it can handle the expected number of users or transactions.
2. Improved scalability: By identifying the system’s maximum capacity, load testing helps ensure that the system can handle an increasing number of users or transactions over time. This is particularly important for web-based systems and applications that are expected to handle a high volume of traffic.
3. Improved reliability: Load testing helps identify any potential issues that may occur under heavy load conditions, such as increased error rates or slow response times. This helps ensure that the system is reliable and stable when it is deployed to production.

2. Stress Testing

In Stress Testing, we give unfavorable conditions to the system and check how it perform in those conditions. 

Example:

1. Test cases that require maximum memory or other resources are executed.
2. Test cases that may cause thrashing in a virtual operating system.
3. Test cases that may cause excessive disk requirement Performance Testing.

It is designed to test the run-time performance of software within the context of an integrated system. It is used to test the speed and effectiveness of the program. It is also called load testing. In it, we check, what is the performance of the system in the given load.

Example: 

Checking several processor cycles.

3. Scalability Testing

Scalability Testing is a type of non-functional testing in which the performance of a software application, system, network, or process is tested in terms of its capability to scale up or scale down the number of user request load or other such performance attributes. It can be carried out at a hardware, software or database level. Scalability Testing is defined as the ability of a network, system, application, product or a process to perform the function correctly when changes are made in the size or volume of the system to meet a growing need. It ensures that a software product can manage the scheduled increase in user traffic, data volume, transaction counts frequency, and many other things. It tests the system, processes, or database’s ability to meet a growing need. 

Advantages of Scalability Testing

• It provides more accessibility to the product.
• It detects issues with web page loading and other performance issues.
• It finds and fixes the issues earlier in the product which saves a lot of time.
• It ensures the end-user experience under the specific load. It provides customer satisfaction.
• It helps in effective tool utilization tracking.

4. Stability Testing

Stability Testing is a type of Software Testing to checks the quality and behavior of the software under different environmental parameters. It is defined as the ability of the product to continue to function over time without failure. 

It is a Non-functional Testing technique that focuses on stressing the software component to the maximum. Stability testing is done to check the efficiency of a developed product beyond normal operational capacity which is known as break point. It has higher significance in error handling, software reliability, robustness, and scalability of a product under heavy load rather than checking the system behavior under normal circumstances. 

Stability testing assesses stability problems. This testing is mainly intended to check whether the application will crash at any point in time or not. 

Advantages of Stability Testing

1. It gives the limit of the data that a system can handle practically.
2. It provides confidence on the performance of the system.
3. It determines the stability and robustness of the system under load.
4. Stability testing leads to a better end-user experience.

Welcome to the world of software testing, which ensures the quality and reliability of software applications. Understanding the various types of software testing is essential for developers and quality assurance professionals alike.

In this guide, we’ll explore the fundamental categories of software testing, from unit testing to security testing, helping you navigate and ensuring your software will meet the highest standards of performance and functionality.