Performance Metrics

version: 1.0
date: 2001-11-11 16:07:08

Performance metrics project for Commercialware


|Metric: measurement of a particular characteristic of a program's performance or efficiency.

Tim has since taken over this project http://marge.mediasset.com/investigators/tweaver/

Update 3.8.2001 - I've been through the cdc demo, now I must talk to Trish about the desired metrics.

I believe that the goal is to review the performance of the client side of the CDC app. Obviously, it being a web UI makes things particularly entertaining, given the plethora of browser versions out there. Assuming that minimal processing takes place on the client (given that the web component was added in version this is a safe assumption, I hope) then the primary fields of concern would be (in no particular order):

  • speed of network connection. Obviously a slow connection will have a negative impact on performance. The more back-and-forth between client and server, the uglier it gets.
  • server load. A server doing multiple duties (e.g. mail and web, web and database, etc etc) will rapidly slow to a crawl under significant volumes of client requests (NT platform, so server being used for more than one purpose is a bad idea anyway).
  • profile of client machine. What client side code there is will only perform as well as it is able to on the client machine. The client profile includes things like browser version.
  • code cleanliness of web interface. Clean code works better.
  • useability of web interface. If the user has trouble using the site from a comprehension standpoint, it doesn't matter how fast the server or net connection are.
  • other variables to be named later

Resources

  •    useit has some nice comments on metrics, though the focus is on useability rather than basic UI performance.
  •    QUIP A project out of Bezerkeley on UI Profiling.
  •    linux.com has an interesting discussion on the eazel project (interesting how the assumptions made about the users were wrong).

Side note: Why would you trust a uidesign site that used green and purple as their colors, had confusing navigation, and a broken search function?