Hi there,
I am looking for some advice and guidance please.
I have been developing some performance related requirements for user interfaces. An example requirement to aid this discussion could be:
"A user shall be presented with a search result within 5 seconds of the search being initiated"
Obviously, 5 seconds was an arbitrary figure provided by the business based on some averaged user expectations of what would be an acceptable performance timescale. Now, testers have raised some clarifications with regard to this requirement based on their test approach. For instance, if testing this requirement on a system containing no or few records then the requirement will be met, probably exceeded. However, if testing this requirement on a considerably larger system, it may be that this requirement is not met, all of the time.
From the business perspective, 5 seconds is the absolute maximum time for a seach to be completed and results presented to a user. From a requirements perspective, is there anything else that I could have done? Is this requirement lacking any way? Or is it the case that this is a design/development issue where ultimately, the solution that they come up with should be able to meet this performance requirment?
Hi Phil,
Perhaps describe the environment that the test will occur in so that it is done under load. Or the type of transaction that is initiated e.g. a complex one or database heavy one or one involving say a web service request to another system.
I often describe these as a combination of an average and a maximum. So if 5 secs is your absolute max you could say an average of 2 secs and max of 5 secs. Or even an average of 2 seconds for 99% of the time and a max of no more than 5 secs.
I'm rambling now so I went and looked up non-functional requirements:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-functional_requirement
which led me to performance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_performance
Hope that helps
Kimbo
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