The difference between a successful application and one that struggles to survive often boils down to one aspect: performance. Unfortunately, many apps sink before they can take sail because of glitches, slow speeds, and coding errors that often lead to poor customer reviews.
Fortunately, web developers can practice performance monitoring to gain valuable insight into potential problem areas and dysfunctional operations. That way, you can ensure any issues remain few and far between, allowing your app to run optimally.
By tracking how your application performs and delivers, you can guarantee users have an enjoyable, stress-free experience on your app. Here are seven best practices for performance monitoring that every app developer should implement.
Prioritizing maintenance and monitoring requirements
Regular maintenance and application performance monitoring can help identify and fix any issues, allowing you to keep a close eye on performance to prevent serious malfunctions. Plus, learning how different events affect your app’s usability enables you to prepare for possible delays and warn users.
For example, content updates might improve engagement but negatively impact load time, while a new user acquisition campaign might increase sessions but lower retention rates.
Configuring actionable alerts
As an app developer, you should configure alerts to notify you when crashes or errors pop up. That way, you can take action quickly and prevent any further issues instead of stumbling upon the problem hours after the initial breakdown.
Make sure the alerts are actionable by coding specific alarms that offer exact error information so you can take quick action. For example, if there is an outage or connection problem, an alert needs to notify you within a few minutes of noticing an issue with your app's performance.
Once you’ve set up the different notifications, determine the criticality of each alert. Criticality levels include information, warning, error, and disaster, allowing you to interpret the technicalities of the issue through keywords and helpful data. Warning alerts typically indicate an upcoming issue with performance, while error indicates a simple, fixable problem. The disaster level suggests a more critical malfunction that may require more extensive intervention from your team before resolving the issue.
Conducting tests and manual checks when launching new versions of your application
Before you launch a new app version, it's important to conduct tests and manual examinations to ensure the update doesn’t introduce any further performance issues.
For example, you should test each build with different devices and browsers before rolling out updates to all users, monitoring usage data from previous releases for one week after deployment. Additionally, conduct automated regression testing using the right tools to help catch issues related to network connections, browsers, operating systems, or third-party integrations.
Monitor metrics such as latency, throughput, timeouts, and crashes to assess whether any changes introduced by the update may have unintended consequences. Lastly, request feedback from your customers to see if they experience any changes following the deployment of a new version.
Using tools and analytics to reveal performance
By understanding your business processes, you can choose the right automation tool, as some application performance monitoring (APM) tools may focus on fewer minimal but essential operations.
In contrast, others may offer extensive features to reveal key performance indicators. Ultimately, relying on trustworthy vendors is better than risking a self-build tool. So, research your business, application requirements, service-level agreements (SLAs), and customers before settling. That way, you can find the perfect system for your setup.
Acquiring help from experts
When it comes to performance monitoring, there's no shame in admitting you need help from the experts. The best way to find performance professionals is by researching and seeking out recommendations from people you trust. Once you've gathered a list of highly-regarded experts, consider asking for help monitoring your app's performance.
Evaluating customer experience
Tracking customer experience means tracking key metrics and analyzing feedback. By monitoring benchmarks and customer feedback over long periods, you can ensure your customer experience rating is heading in a positive direction.
In addition, always be on the lookout for ways to improve the user experience by tackling client pain points. Identify major shifts or spikes in any data sets that might indicate an issue with the app or a change in user behavior.
Training personnel to work with APM tools
It’s not enough to simply install an APM tool and hope for the best. To get the most value out of your resources, experiment with different settings and usages and follow the best practices. As a result, it would be wise to train the team in what tools are available and how to use them.
Companies can choose whether they need a team that oversees APM operations or if it's okay for all the staff to use in-house APM insights for their work.
Parting shot
Performance monitoring ensures your app stays on track and runs smoothly, keeping users coming back for more. Identify issues early and prevent significant delays by tracking key performance indicators.
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