Web Design/Website Performance Test Plan

This Website Performance Test Plan is intended to be a template that you can adapt for your own purposes. Please edit and improve it and you see fit.

The purpose of this document is to provide a plan for testing the performance of your website and document the results. It should be possible for any web designer following you to conduct the Performance Test according to the processes detailed in this document.

This template document is based on a fictitious site for a fictitious company, ABC Solutions.

Executive summary
This document details the agreed processes that are to be performed in order to validate that the Village Car Show website meets (and continues to meet) the agreed website goals.

Technical performance tests are to be executed whenever a new revision of the site is uploaded. Business performance tests are ongoing and should be monitored regularly as outlined below.

The most recent technical test conducted on the 15/10 demonstrated that the Village Car Show website currently meets all the technical performance goals. The most recent business performance test shows that new visitors are increasing above the stated 10% per week goal (at 13%), but recurring visits are slightly below at 4% per month. The bounce rate for the landing page over the last month is 40%, but moving down. Enquiries through the Village Car Show contact-us page is averaging 30 enquiries per week.

Performance goals for Village Car Show
The Village Car Show website redesign has the following agreed performance goals:

Technical performance goals

 * The landing page must have a total size less than 40kb.
 * Every page should have a maximum size of 55kb, including all html, images, css and javascript items that are not cached.
 * All pages must be valid HTML 4.01 Strict.
 * All pages must display consistently in Firefox (v1.5+), IE (v6 and v7), Opera and Safari.
 * All pages must satisfy all the Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints of the WCAG 1.0 checklist (That is, AA conformance).
 * All links should be current (no stale links)

Business performance goals

 * New visitors per week to increase by 10% for the first four weeks after the launch, 40% for the next 4 weeks (during the marketing campaign), and then 20% per week for the following 12 weeks.
 * Recurring visits to increase steadily by 5% per week.
 * A bounce rate of less than 30% for the landing page (i.e. 70% of people entering the site through the home page should click on a link to view further pages).
 * Enquiries through the contact form are to reach 40 per week by December

Technical Performance Test
This test is to be completed each time the live site is updated.

Required tools to complete this test:
 * W3C validation service (Available through the Firefox Web Developer extension)
 * Content Quality's Cynthia Says Accessibility testing service (also available through the Firefox Web Dev extension). Or a separate completed Accessibility Evaluation Report for ABC Solutions)
 * Website Optimization's Speed report service (also linked through Firefox Web developer toolbar)
 * Browsers: Firefox, IE6, IE7, Opera and Safari. Or alternatively, a BrowserCam account (free 24hr trial available) or BrowseEmAll Trial.
 * W3C Link Checker

Business Performance Test
The following data, measuring the business performance goals of the ABC Solutions website, is to be documented weekly for the first 12 weeks after the launch, and then monthly thereafter. An account with Google Analytics has been setup with the (username: abcsolutions)

Technical test on 18/08/06
Tester: Jeb Landers

Exceptions
 * 1.1 The company profile page fails Checkpoint 6.1 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines due to ...

Technical test on 14/09/06
...

Appendix A - Speed Reports
For each page included in the test plan, include the dated speed report here.

Appendix B - Accessibility tests
For each page included in the test plan, include a dated completed checklist here.

Appendix - Google Analytics reports
For each weeks Business Performance test, include the Google Analytics report here.