What Is Nonfunctional Testing?
Nonfunctional testing verifies whether the system meets the non-functional quality attributes and makes sure that the system behaves or operates in the required manner by examining things like performance, accessibility, and UX. Non-functional testing is equally important as functional testing and affects client satisfaction.
Types of Non-Functional Testing
Following are some major types of non-functional testing that are important to be tested:
Security Testing
Security testing is one of the most crucial testing types of non-functional testing, it is used to detect security flaws in the software application. In this type of testing, the system’s readiness to fight back against any external or internal attacks is tested. It makes sure that only authorized and authenticated users are allowed to access the software, and users’ data is secured and available to them whenever required. The testing is done by investigating system architecture and the mindset of an attacker. Test cases are conducted by finding areas of code where an attack is most likely to happen.
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 eliminates the reason behind the slow and limited performance of the software. The reading speed of the software should be as fast as possible.
Usability testing
Usability Testing is a type of testing, that is done from an end user’s perspective to determine if the system is easily usable. Usability testing is generally the practice of testing how to easy a design is to use on a group of representative users. These users explore the different functionalities of the application and share the usability defects. Usability testing is often conducted on prototypes rather than finished products, with different levels of fidelity depending on the development phase.
Efficiency Testing
The efficiency test examines the number of resources needed to develop a software system, and how many of these were used. It also includes the test of these three points.
Scalability Testing
Scalability Testing is defined as the ability of a network, system, application, product, or process to perform the function correctly when changes are made in the size or volume of the system to meet a growing need. It tests the system, processes, or databases' ability to meet a growing need and to measure at what point the software product or the system stops scaling and identify the reason behind it. The parameters used for this testing differ from one application to another. For example, the scalability testing of a web page depends on the number of users, CPU usage, and network usage while the scalability testing of a web server depends on the number of requests processed.
Compatibility Testing
Compatibility testing is carried out to verify whether an application or software can run on different devices, browsers, operating systems, hardware, and networks. 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 from a product production and implementation point of view as it is performed to avoid future issues regarding compatibility.
Final Words:
Non-Functional testing is designed to test the readiness of a system as per nonfunctional parameters which are never addressed by functional testing. Non-functional testing is as important as functional testing. Only some of the most important types of non-functional testing were mentioned in this article and there are still many types that will be discussed in detail in other articles.