Using QA Proxy

There are a myriad of ways to use QA proxy, depending entirely on your needs. The usage scenario I outline below is just one example of how this tool may be used.

Scenario

You have been asked to profile a particular navigational path through a website and come up with some recomendations as to how the site can be optimized. The site is fairly graphics intensive and makes extensive use of Flash Remoting.

Preparation

First run through the navigational path you have been given and make sure you are familiar with the navigation as an end user. Then fire up QA Proxy, change your browser preferences and you're good to go.

The Navigational Path

For the purposes of demonstration, let's assume a simple navigational path to enroll as a member of the site:

  1. Go to the home page
  2. Click on the "Sign Up" link
  3. The Flash subscription form appears
  4. Enter your details and hit "Submit"
  5. The membership confirmation screen appears

Using QA Proxy

  1. When QA Proxy starts, the Current Session and Total Sessions statistics are exactly the same. At this point, enter an annotation into the logs, something like "Navigating to home page"
  2. Go to the home page (you will see the HTTP traffic being logged in the HTTP log)
  3. Once the home page has loaded, hit Snapshot to insert a snapshot of the statistics into the logs
  4. Now clear the Current Session statistics by hitting F6
  5. Enter a new annotation that you are going to click the "sign up" link
  6. Click the "sign up" link. You will now see logging in both the HTTP and AMF logs
  7. Once again, insert a Snapshot of the statistics into the logs. You now have the statistics for the "sign up" page as well as the overall statistics from the time you started browsing
  8. Clear the Current Session statistics
  9. Enter a new annotation "submit details"
  10. Complete and submit the application
  11. The confirmation screen appears
  12. In QA Proxy, take a final snapshot and add a final annotation
  13. Click on the HTTP Log tab and then select "Save HTTP Log". Save the log to disk. Click on the AMF Log tab and select "Save AMF Log". The logs are stored as plain text files, ready for you to analyze and compare

    14. File using.shtml last updated Wednesday, 16-Apr-2003 11:12:07 PDT