Non-functional testing

Non-functional testing is testing software for its non-functional requirements: the way a system operates, rather than specific behaviors of that system. This is in contrast to functional testing, which tests against functional requirements that describe the functions of a system and its components.

Types of non-functional testing

Accessibility testing

Accessibility testing is a non-functional testing activity that verifies whether a system, website, or application can be perceived, operated, and understood by people with a wide range of disabilities and whether it meets objective accessibility criteria such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG success criteria. It typically combines automated checks, to detect obvious technical failures, manual inspection, to evaluate semantic structure, keyboard navigation, and ARIA usage, and human usability testing with people who have disabilities to assess real-world effectiveness and usability. Many government and organizational web standards now require WCAG conformance and explicitly treat accessibility as a mandatory non-functional quality attribute of public-facing digital services. Practical guides and industry overviews describe accessibility testing as a specialized subset of usability and non-functional testing that focuses on legal conformance, inclusive design, and measurable success criteria rather than functional feature behaviour alone.*

Baseline testing

Baseline testing is a non-functional activity that establishes a measured reference for key quality attributes (for example, response time, throughput, resource usage, error rates, and availability) against which future changes, releases, or configurations are compared. It usually occurs early in a release cycle or after a major environment change and combines controlled synthetic tests (benchmarks, scripted workloads, profiling) with monitored production observations to capture representative operating conditions. The baseline results are recorded as pass/fail thresholds, performance budgets, or trend series so regressions, capacity drift, and configuration-induced degradation can be detected quickly and triaged. Best practice is to store baseline test artifacts (test scripts, input datasets, environment definitions, and raw metrics) alongside the release so reruns are reproducible and comparisons remain meaningful across time.

See also

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Further reading

• Myers, Glenford J. (2011). The Art of Software Testing (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1118031964.
• Kaner, Cem; Falk, Jack; Nguyen, Hung Quoc (1999). Testing Computer Software (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0471358466.
• Beizer, Boris (1995). Software Testing Techniques (2nd ed.). Boston: International Thomson Computer Press. ISBN 9788177222609.
• ISO/IEC 25010:2011 Systems and software engineering — Systems and software Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE) — System and software quality models (standard), International Organization for Standardization, 2011
• IEEE Standard for Software and System Test Documentation (IEEE 829-2008) (standard), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2008
• Black, Rex (2009). Advanced Software Testing – Vol. 2: Guide to the ISTQB Advanced Certification as an Advanced Test Manager. Santa Monica, CA: Rocky Nook. ISBN 9781933952192.
• Graham, Dorothy; Van Veenendaal, Erik; Evans, Isabel; Black, Rex (2008). Foundations of Software Testing: ISTQB Certification. London: Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1844809899.
• Bertolino, Antonia (2007). "Software Testing Research: Achievements, Challenges, Dreams". Future of Software Engineering (FOSE '07). IEEE Computer Society. pp. 85–103. doi:10.1109/FOSE.2007.25.
• Li, Zhi; Harman, Mark; Hierons, Robert M. (2007). "Search Algorithms for Regression Test Case Prioritization". IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. 33 (4): 225–237. doi:10.1109/TSE.2007.38.

External links

• "ISO/IEC 25010:2011 – Systems and software quality models". ISO. International Organization for Standardization. Retrieved 2025-11-04.
• "OWASP Top Ten". OWASP. Open Worldwide Application Security Project. Retrieved 2025-11-04.
• "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview". W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 2025-11-04.
• "Non-Functional Testing – GeeksforGeeks". GeeksforGeeks. GeeksforGeeks. 2025-07-20. Retrieved 2025-11-04.
• "Complete Guide to Non-Functional Testing: 51 Types, Examples & Applications". TestRail Blog. TestRail. 2024-11-14. Retrieved 2025-11-04.
• "Non-Functional Testing: A Complete Handbook for Developers". Orient Software Blog. Orient Software. 2024-10-14. Retrieved 2025-11-04.