Glossary » stress testing
stress testing
or “try-to-destroy-it” testing; testing the limits of a system based on the range of possible human interactions. Stress testing is especially appropriate to systems being used under extreme conditions: in public kiosks, unusual climates, for users who are unusually preoccupied (as in cars) or unusually stressed (in emergency rooms).
Testing may consist of trying to break the machine, by seeing how difficult it is to crash the application or break the security, by testing input devices to see how much punishment they can take. For instance, how well does a mouse or joystick react to extreme force or repeated rapid movement? (such conditions may be common with public kiosks).
