Test case Think Time

A physical user typically spends some time on each page to analyze the displayed information or enter data. The delay between opening a page and navigating to a subsequent page is called think time. Think time is an important factor in realistic load tests. You can customize page think times to emulate different users’ iteration for a more realistic load test. The following think time mode options are supported.

Think Time Mode	Description
Zero	No think time is used. This is generally not recommended for load tests because it results in an abnormally high load on the tested website. Use this option when a maximum load is required in stress tests.
Page-level	The think time specified in each page will be used. The default value is the recorded think time. When recording a test case, StresStimulus registers the time you spent on web pages and saves it in the page Think Time property. You can modify this property before running a test. To do so, in the Pages Settings tree node select a page and make a change in its property grid.
Constant	A constant think time will be used. Another property will appear called Think Time (s) where you can specify a fixed value.
Random	When any of the previous options is selected, all VUs will exercise the same think time for pages. This never happens in real life. To make the test more realistic, use randomized think time for pages. When this option is selected, a random value in a given range will be used. Two properties will appear called Min Think Time (s) and Max Think Time (s) in which you can specify the think time range.

The think time is a delay inserted before requesting a subsequent page. The think time will not be applied after the last page in the test case because there is no subsequent page. If you need to inject a delay after the last page before starting a new iteration, use Delay after the Test Case instead.

Note: The default think time setting is constant at 2 seconds.

Think time is not included in the page response time. However, higher think time slows down the client request rate, which results in a lower server load. Increasing think time will typically decrease the request rate and will allow the server to handle more virtual users.