Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool that QA engineers use to estimate the quality of web pages. This tool provides excellent functionality for web performance testing:
- Since the tool is open-source, it is almost free of charge.
- Its flexibility allows QA engineers to simulate network throttling, make device emulation, and create other specific audit conditions that may impact performance metrics.
- It can be complemented by Puppeteer. This Node.js library enables creating a test flow necessary to test some types of target pages (like a web page behind authentication).
- Lighthouse reports involve metrics that Google uses for ranking.
- Engineers may configure the final report by excluding some categories and including specific audits.
- Test engineers may go beyond default Lighthouse audits and create custom ones.
When it comes to e-commerce website performance testing, estimating just a home page is not enough to get a 360-degree view of the web solution performance. Lighthouse performance audit involves checking the Home page, Account page, Product listing page, Product detail page, Cart, Checkout, and Order confirmation page, as a minimum.
QA engineers may make a complex audit of web pages by assessing the quality in five categories:
1. Performance. The tool measures how quickly a website or app loads and how quickly users can access or view the content.
2. Accessibility. Test engineers may use the tools to check a web page for common accessibility errors, may find room for improvement, and suggest additional tech stacks.
3. Best practices. This audit category describes the security aspects of a website and modern standards of web development.
4. Search engine optimization (SEO). This category shows how well search engines rank a website or app and display it in the search results.
5. Progressive web applications. PWA is needed to deliver enhanced app capabilities, reliability, and installability based on a single codebase. It permits reaching out to anyone, anywhere, and on any device, offering users to jump from a web page to download a separate app.
For each category, you receive reference documentation, clarifications on why you do need this type of audit, and what improvements you can make.
Such an inclusive QA approach using Lighthouse web performance testing ensures an excellent overview of the quality of your site as a whole. It checks the performance of your site equally well on desktop, mobile, and web applications.