Don’t let load testing intimidate you. It’s a necessary part of any development process for websites and applications. Leaving a mission-critical piece of online software untested can spell disaster for businesses, and ultimately result in a massive loss of revenue and damage to your reputation.

The good news is that you don’t have to go it alone. Load testing experts like our team at LoadView will help to answer your questions about what load testing entails and ensure your websites and applications provide the best possible experience for your users. Let’s look further at what load testing is and how load testing experts can help.

website load testing

How Load Testing Works

Before setting out to load test your software, it’s important to have a good understanding of what load testing is and how it can benefit you. Load testing is just one type of software testing that falls under the larger umbrella of performance testing.

Load testing is a specific type of testing in which the performance of your software is tested under an expected load (i.e. the number of users). The fundamental goal of load testing is to resolve bottlenecks and ensure that your software is stable and functioning smoothly before making it available to the public.

 

Load Testing Objectives

The general objective of load testing is to provide developers with insight into how your software is performing. Here are just some of the questions that can be answered after a load test:

  • How does a given numbers of users affect performance?
  • How many users simultaneously use the software before performance begins to suffer
  • Are there any bottlenecks?
  • How many individual transactions can the software handle over a given amount of time?
  • What is the breaking point of the website or application? At what point do resources start to run low?

 

The Load Testing Process

The load testing process involves numerous variables, which might seem challenging. Your specific situation and software will determine how complex your load test will likely be. A load testing expert will help you understand your requirements and design a process suitable to your needs.

Load testing generally follows a regular process, that begins with determining the existing load of your website. You and your development team should be able to easily discover just how many users are served during a given period, say an average Friday, using a tool like Google Analytics or internal resources.

Then you can determine anticipated surges in traffic, say for a big event like Black Friday in the case of an ecommerce website. Load testing will allow you to test your websites and applications under various loads, say 200% then 500% your typical number of users over a given hour. From here you’ll receive information you can then turn into actionable insights into the performance of your websites. At what point does a given site begin to slow or even crash?

This starts a feedback loop for development by which you and your team can make improvements to a website and then return to test again to see how effective you’ve been. Load testing, in other words, is an ongoing and essential part of any serious development process.

A Bit About Load Testing & APIs

If you’re using an application that’s driven by APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), it could be a good idea to ignore specific user flows and focus more on API endpoints – the spot where two pieces of software communicate. This can reveal whether the gateway into your software is working, but it won’t offer any information on a user’s experience once they are navigating your software.

Leverage Our Experts at LoadView

At LoadView we specialize in real user, real browser load testing and have developed a set of tools that make complex testing simple for even non-technical users. Beyond this, our team stands ready to assist you at every phase of the process, so you can maximize your load testing budget and build it into your development process in order to make consistent improvements to your websites and applications.

 

The Strong Case for Regular Load Testing

A website that performs poorly will impact your bottom line, most obviously in the case of ecommerce but also for websites that generate leads and simply represent your business to the world. If your business can’t deliver a high-functioning websites, people will wonder about your seriousness and professionalism in other domains.

Beyond revenue, a slow website or application will damage your brand and even hurt the reputation of your development team internally. So much stress and pain can be avoided by regular load testing both as part of your development process but also as standard practice.

Beyond this, every user wants to have a smooth and effortless experience when they use a piece of software. To ensure that users continue to use your software, you need to do all you can to prevent crashes, bottlenecks, and other malfunctions. This is where load testing comes in not once but as an ongoing part of everything you do with your company’s online software.

The bottom line is: it’s better to be safe than sorry, and our load testing experts at LoadView will act as your objective partners to maximize your users’ experience and your own load testing budget.

 

Further Considerations About Load Testing

There are legitimate reasons why so many decide to opt out of load testing. There’s a lot that goes into the process, and proper load testing always comes at a cost. Our load testing experts at LoadView will help you maximize your load testing budget and focus on actionable insights so you can meaningfully improve your websites and applications for your users.

Some considerations when looking at load testing include:

  • Load testing tools are often licensed, and the cost of the license can be expensive. Even with the use of open-source tools such as JMeter, a simulation of a real-world test environment will be required. “Open-source” does not mean free.
  • The process of writing a load test script usually requires scripting knowledge of scripting languages. LoadView is an exception, as we provide an easy point and click scripting tool to help you simulate real user behavior for your load testing.
  • By not properly load testing, you can generate inaccurate results, which in turn can cause further issues and even lead your developers down a bad or unnecessary path. This is one major reason we strongly recommend working with a load testing expert like ours at LoadView.

 

LoadView for load testing

LoadView Load Testing & Your Users

The users of your websites and applications want a smooth and reliable experience, and if you don’t provide it, they’ll quickly bounce and move on to the competition. A great customer experience is the best way to ensure your company’s success online.

Some benefits of LoadView for load testing include:

  • Protocol-level and real browser-based testing
  • Real browser-based scripting with the EveryStep Web Recorder
  • Advanced scripting support for 40+ desktop/mobile browsers and devices
  • Load curve options – load step, goal-based, and dynamic adjustable curves
  • Test from multiple global locations
  • Scale from dozens to thousands of virtual users
  • Measure response time as perceived by users
  • Reuse load testing scripts for uptime monitoring
  • Pay for what you use, no long-term contracts
  • Support available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Your websites and applications are a crucial element in the success of your business. Winning online begins with ensuring that your software runs smoothly and offers a satisfactory user experience. If you’re still on the fence about load testing, schedule a discovery call with our team at LoadView and learn how we can help you efficiently and affordably achieve your goals.