Non-functional tests cover eight major areas: performance, usability, security, risk assessment, reliability, compatibility, maintainability, and portability. Each of these areas has its own specific types of testing to address unique needs. Executing non-functional tests can be challenging, requiring time, experience, and attention to detail to meet all the requirements.
Without a reliable test management platform like TestRail, keeping your non-functional testing program updated, organized, and cost-effective can be difficult and time-consuming.
Why are non-functional tests important?
Non-functional tests are essential for ensuring that a product meets quality standards under real-world conditions. These tests go beyond pure software functionality to validate how a system behaves, addressing critical aspects like speed, reliability, and user experience.
We know that testing environments and production environments can differ significantly. That’s why it’s important to run non-functional tests in both settings to accurately evaluate a system’s behavior. Neglecting to run non-functional tests in production can also lead to issues that only surface when the product is live, which can be costly and damaging.
Every team should integrate non-functional tests into their test plans and CI/CD pipelines. Doing so helps identify potential risks and performance bottlenecks—not just for new features, but also to ensure that existing functionalities remain reliable for daily users.
Efficiently tracking these results is equally crucial. It allows teams to pinpoint areas for improvement, ensuring the product can scale and perform consistently across various environments. This also builds a foundation of trust and reliability for long-term success.
Centralized test management: The key to better results
A centralized test management platform like TestRail plays a pivotal role in centralizing non-functional testing tasks, providing teams with a unified platform to manage test cases, their execution, and their results. TestRail reduces siloed workflows, fostering collaboration among testers, developers, and managers for a more cohesive testing process.
Having all non-functional testing activities in one place offers several benefits. It allows teams to quickly reference past tests, track current progress, and maintain consistency across different testing phases.
This is crucial for tests like performance, security, and usability, which ensure the final product delivers a smooth user experience, stays secure under stress, and performs efficiently at scale. In today’s fast-paced world, reliability and stability are non-negotiable for any product or system.
Teams should prioritize integrating non-functional tests into their test plans to avoid surprises and costly post-launch issues. TestRail makes this process seamless by allowing teams to:
- Streamline test organization: Use custom fields to capture specific metrics (e.g., load times, security threats) and quickly identify cases in test suites.
- Link tests to requirements and milestones: For example, a load test might be tied to performance requirements, while a security test could align with compliance goals.
This centralized approach enhances traceability, allowing teams to identify coverage gaps, ensure accountability, and provide clear evidence of results. Dashboards and reports offer real-time visibility into key metrics such as test execution progress, performance results, and issue trends, enabling teams to monitor and optimize test performance effectively.
Testers can generate detailed reports to evaluate results over time, compare test runs, and identify improvement areas. These insights not only ensure that non-functional requirements are met but also help stakeholders make informed decisions and achieve project objectives with confidence.
Image: In TestRail, you can check the results of your automated test runs and error messages for failed tests, generate reports that aggregate manual and automated testing information, get insights on test coverage, and track test automation progress.
By adopting TestRail, teams can simplify non-functional test management, ensuring that all results are centrally managed, easily referenced, and actionable for continuous improvement.
Structure your non-functional test cases in TestRail
Creating well-structured test cases is crucial for effectively managing and executing non-functional tests. In TestRail, this process is streamlined through customizable test case templates, which allow you to include relevant parameters like server load, response times, or security vulnerability thresholds.
Image: TestRail tracks that data and allows teams to compare results across test runs, configurations, and milestones. It also comes with completely customizable report templates.
When designing tests, testers should define specific parameters to ensure easier execution and accurate validation of results. For example:
- Performance testing: Number of concurrent users, response times, and resource utilization.
- Security testing: Vulnerability targets, access permissions, and expected security thresholds.
- Reliability testing: Uptime requirements, stress factors, and recovery processes.
- Usability testing: User personas, task scenarios, and usability criteria.
Using TestRail’s custom fields feature, teams can capture and analyze essential metrics, ensuring all critical aspects are covered.
TestRail’s organization tools, such as test suites, sections, and test plans, further enhance clarity by allowing teams to group similar tests and align them with project goals or milestones. This makes it easier to track progress, report results, and ensure comprehensive test coverage across different scenarios and environments.
By investing in test case structure, teams can improve clarity, reduce the risk of overlooking critical non-functional requirements, and achieve better testing outcomes.
Key parameters for non-functional tests
There’s a lot to consider when developing test cases for non-functional testing—this cheat sheet will help make sure you’re covering all the crucial factors.
- Performance Testing:
- Load parameters: Number of users, transactions per second, expected load on the system.
- Response time thresholds: Maximum acceptable times for actions (e.g., page load times).
- System capacity: Ensure that the testing environment matches production conditions.
- Security Testing:
- Vulnerability targets: Specific security risks (e.g., SQL injection, cross-site scripting).
- Test environment: Access permissions, user roles, and setup details.
- Security thresholds: Criteria for acceptable risk levels.
- Reliability Testing:
- Uptime requirements: Minimum acceptable system availability (e.g., 99.9% uptime).
- Stress factors: Conditions under which failures are tested (e.g., peak loads).
- Recovery process: Expected recovery behavior from failures.
- Usability Testing:
- User personas: Target profiles and behavior familiarity.
- Task scenarios: Common tasks to evaluate ease of use.
- Usability criteria: Metrics like ease of navigation and task completion time.
With TestRail, these parameters can be captured as custom fields, test case descriptions, or prerequisites—simplifying documentation, tracking, and systematic execution of non-functional tests.
Integrations that support non-functional testing
TestRail’s integrations enable seamless collaboration with the tools and frameworks your team already uses, making non-functional testing more efficient for both testers and management teams. These integrations streamline processes by centralizing data, automating workflows, and facilitating better decision-making.
TestRail integrates directly with your existing tech stack to support non-functional test management. This allows teams to collect data, track results, and address issues more effectively. By combining TestRail’s capabilities with other tools, you can enhance test execution, analysis, and reporting.
Key integrations for non-functional testing:
- Performance testing frameworks: JMeter
- Requirements and issue tracking tools: Jira, Azure DevOps
- CI/CD tools: Jenkins, BitBucket Pipelines, GitLab CI/CD, Travis CI.
These integrations simplify data centralization, enabling teams to analyze results and generate reports efficiently. This not only improves collaboration but also supports faster and more informed decision-making throughout the testing process.
How TestRail enhances non-functional testing
Consistent non-functional test execution:
TestRail helps ensure comprehensive test coverage by streamlining processes and enhancing collaboration. Its centralized platform allows teams to manage non-functional testing activities efficiently, reducing the risk of gaps or inconsistencies.
Faster execution with integrations:
By integrating TestRail with CI/CD tools, teams can automate test execution and receive real-time feedback. This reduces manual effort and accelerates the testing process, enabling quicker identification of issues.
Advanced reporting features:
TestRail’s customizable templates and reporting tools allow teams to structure tests around specific non-functional requirements, such as performance and security. These reports provide actionable insights to improve software quality.
Alignment with requirements:
Centralizing data and linking tests to project milestones and requirements ensures full traceability. This approach helps teams track results efficiently and guarantees the system performs as expected across different environments.
Celebrating women in science: A commitment to quality in software testing
February 11th marks the International Day of Women and Girls in Science—a day to celebrate the essential contributions of women in STEM fields, including software testing.
This blog post, authored by a woman passionate about advancing software quality, highlights the importance of non-functional testing in delivering reliable, high-performing software that meets the demands of today’s users.
Women in software testing drive innovation and excellence, leveraging their expertise and creativity to ensure software meets the highest standards of performance, security, and usability. Non-functional testing, a cornerstone of quality assurance, thrives on structured processes and collaboration—qualities exemplified by women in the field.
On this day, we celebrate the achievements of women in QA and software testing while inspiring the next generation to shape the future of technology.
Join the conversation and learn how TestRail can help your team streamline non-functional testing processes to deliver high-quality software. Start your free 30-day trial today.
With more than a decade of experience in Software QA and expertise in several business areas, Patrícia Duarte Mateus has a QA mindset built by the different roles she has played—including tester, test manager, test analyst, and QA engineer. She’s Portuguese, living in Portugal, and is currently a Solution Architect and QA Advocate for TestRail. Patrícia is also a speaker, mentor and founder of a project whose objective is to demystify and educate on Software QA with a focus on Portuguese-speaking people, called “A QA Portuguesa”. Her areas of interest beyond QA include deepening her knowledge of psychology, tech, management, teaching/mentoring, health, and entrepreneurship. Books, podcasts, Ted Talks and YouTube are always on Patrícia’s to-do list to ensure a good day!
