Web applications continue to evolve in richness and complexity, but traditional techniques for performance and load testing tend to avoid measuring what the end-user's impact is in relation to this additional server load. Because of this, many modern web applications using Ajax techniques, like dynamic form validation, tend to behave strangely when the backend is under extreme load.

This session examines common performance-related failures in Ajax sites and offers design tips for dynamic UIs. Patrick Lightbody discusses why simple protocol-level load testing tools, like JMeter, don't do enough to tell you what your user experience will be like and shows you how to simulate the effects of server load on the user's browser and predict common pitfalls in your own UI.

Learn:

• Common performance-related failures in modern Ajax web sites;
• How to predict common pitfalls in your own UI;
• Several development patterns to improve user experience when the backend server is flooded with traffic;
• And more.

Presented at The Ajax Experience 2009, September 14-16, 2009 in Boston, MA