Non Functional testing is also known as ‘Quality Assurance’ or QA. This type of testing does not depend upon the software’s functionality; instead, it verifies that the software works with different browsers, operating systems, and hardware configurations. It is typically done by testers who are testing the system after completing functional testing.
Non-functional testing is normally done by professionals not directly involved in the project. They typically test large systems, so it makes sense for them to do their own testing rather than depend upon testers within each development team. The idea is that a team of testers will find a different set of problems than a single tester.
What Is Non-Functional Testing?
Non-functional testing is the kind of testing that checks continuous operations. It covers basic actions like data transfer speed, scaling up to large volumes of transactions and data, security aspects of an application, etc.
Non Functional Testing Types
There are different types of Non Functional Testing types are there, below we have mentioned some of the frequently used nonfunctional testing types:
Accessibility testing: It is used to check whether the application can be accessed by different people with disabilities or not.
Stress testing is the type of testing in which we put more load on application/software than required. For example, if your application allows users to upload files, stress tests would include uploading huge file sizes like 1GB, etc, to check how much load your application can handle.
Security testing: It is the type of testing in which we check whether application security measures are working correctly or not. For example, authentication and authorization mechanisms should be strong enough to avoid data breaches.
Maintainability testing: It’s a type of non-functional testing that helps us make our system easy to maintain. For example, if your code is easily readable by developers, it is maintainable.
Load testing: It’s a type of non-functional testing, and as the name suggests, we put more load on the application/software to check how much load our application can handle under peak conditions.
Performance testing: It’s a non-functional testing type that checks how our application or software responds under peak conditions. For example, we can check response time, transaction per second, etc.
Availability testing: It’s non-functional testing, and we check whether our application is up and running. For example, if the system is continuously down for maintenance, then users will not be happy with it.
Compliance testing: It’s a type of non-functional testing that helps us check whether our application is compatible with different industry standards, frameworks, or methodologies. For example, if your system complies with PCI-DSS standards, users using that system for online credit/debit card transactions can rest assured that their data will not be compromised.
Configuration testing: It’s a type of non-functional testing that checks whether our application behaves according to defined configurations.
Disaster recovery testing: It’s a type of non-functional testing and it checks whether our application is able to handle disaster conditions or not. For example, what would happen if your server goes down, how much time it will take to recover from that situation.
Endurance testing: It’s a kind of non-functional testing, also called stress/load testing. We usually do endurance tests to see how our application behaves under stressful conditions.
Failover testing: It’s a type of non-functional testing and it checks whether failover is working as per defined system requirement or not.
Geolocation testing: It’s a type of non-functional testing that checks whether our application supports geolocation. For example, if you have an e-commerce website and you have mentioned only the USA as the shipping destination for your product, then users from other countries would not be able to place their orders. So, this type of testing checks whether our system is giving accurate results.
Internationalization testing: This type of non-functional testing checks the behavior of applications in different locales. It can be done on the client, server, or both sides.
Portability testing: It’s a type of non-functional testing and it checks whether our application is portable or not. For example, if your application provides the same functionality for different web browsers then it’s a portable application. For example, Google provides the same search functionality for major web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, IE, etc.
Resilience testing: Non-functional testing checks our application’s behavior when the server/system goes down. For example, how long will it take to come back online if your web server is down for maintenance?
Scalability testing: It’s a type of non-functional testing that checks how our application behaves under peak conditions. For example, if you have an ecommerce website that handles 10 transactions per second and suddenly 100 users visit your website simultaneously, how will it handle the load?
Usability testing: It’s a form of non-functional testing that checks whether our system is easy to use. For example, if your application is difficult to use or the application design is confusing, users will not be able to use it.
So, these are some of the most commonly used non-functional test types across various industries.
