Continuous software testing is essential throughout the software development life cycle to test every part of the software and as a whole to ensure that it’s working as it should.

This helps verify that the software you’re releasing is free of bugs and meets the quality that is expected by your customers.

One type of test to validate product quality is beta testing, which comes at the final stage of testing so that teams have an opportunity to test their releases on real-time or beta users outside the development team to uncover any issues that may not have come up in previous rounds of testing done in more controlled environments.

What is beta testing?

Beta testing involves releasing a software to a select number of external end-users and is usually performed in a production environment.

As already mentioned, beta testing is conducted towards the end of the software development life cycle as a way to validate the quality of the software before going ahead with a wide release.

An important element of beta testing is that it is performed with real users, who form part of your target audience, so that they may test out the beta version of your product and help uncover any bugs that did not show up in previous tests.

How is it different from alpha testing?

Both beta and alpha testing are a means for development teams to uncover bugs in the software so they can fix these issues. Catching these bugs early on before they get to the rest of your customers will avoid customer dissatisfaction in the long run before the release is officially launched to all your user base.

However, there are major differences between these two tests and one should not be confused with the other: both are essential in the testing process and both should be conducted; one cannot replace the other.

Alpha testing comes before beta testing and what differentiates it from beta testing is that alpha tests are done internally, which means that users within your organization are the ones testing the software and raising any issues they come across.

These users tend to be more technical users from within your organization where the QA team will invite these users to go through the alpha test to check how the software functions as a whole and ensure bug-free functionality.

It is also important to note that alpha testing, unlike beta testing, takes place in a controlled staging environment that is a close replica of the production environment.

We also mentioned that beta testing involves black box testing. Alpha testing, on the other hand, involves both white box and black box testing so it seeks to test the internal structure as well.

Advantages of beta testing

• First real opportunity to obtain feedback from real users outside your organization
• Improved product quality through customer feedback
• Development of close relationships with customers, especially if the test is a closed beta test, by invite only to a special segment of users
• Helps uncover errors and bugs that the QA team was not able to catch in earlier tests i.e alpha testing

Disadvantages of beta testing

• The testing process is harder to manage as the environment is not under the control of the development team
• Finding the right beta users may represent a challenge
• Feedback may not prove to be useful especially if there is no efficient system in place to manage and implement this feedback
• Sometimes, it may end up being time consuming which could further delay the official release of the software

Conclusion

While beta testing, like any other type of testing, doesn’t come without its risks, it’s still important to be carried out especially when it comes to guaranteeing customer satisfaction.

At the end of the day, any product you develop will be useless if your customers don’t end up liking the product. Beta testing is a way to validate the level of satisfaction of users with your software, especially since beta users are part of the target audience who are concerned with this particular release.