Testing, as we all know, is an important part of the post-development stage to ensure that the application works as it’s supposed to. QA engineers implement different testing strategies and look for errors that may occur during usage. Testing can be categorized into two stages, alpha testing and beta testing.
Alpha testing is the first layer of testing that is performed by in-house testing teams using software testing tools in a laboratory environment so that user actions can be analyzed and measured. The aim is to emulate the behavior of the real-users and the software works as expected before it’s rolled out in the market. Testing techniques performed in the alpha stage involve system testing, functional testing, security testing, regression testing, smoke testing, integration testing, UI and usability testing, performance testing, and acceptance testing.
Beta testing, on the other hand, comes after the software has passed the alpha testing stage. In this stage, a limited number of end-users are given access to the beta version of the application which they can use, test, and give feedback. This feedback is helpful and can then be used to improve the application. Companies can sometimes decide to make the beta versions public to get as much information about the software and errors as possible. Beta tests can work as a part of the marketing strategy as well. Getting users to use the beta version can help generate positive word of mouth if they end up liking it. The following are the different types of testing in the beta phase.
- Traditional beta testing: Distribution of the software to the target market
- Public beta testing: Releasing the software publicly
- Technical beta testing: Product is tested internally
- Focused beta: Users give their feedback directly to the developers regarding specific features of the software
What happens after beta testing?
Gamma testing is the phase that comes after beta testing however most of the organizations end the testing process at the beta stage. Reason for this that it is considered unnecessary to add a third layer of testing and considered an outdated method. However, even in this era, it can prove to be very useful. One of the benefits of gamma testing is that you collect the feedback much effectively since it’s targeted towards a very limited number of users. The collected feedback and reviews from the product can give helpful insights that can be used for future software upgrades for improvement. Another benefit it provides is that it helps save time as it does not include in-house testing activities. And finally, it ensures that a perfectly functioning application has been released.
Conclusion
Companies direct most of their attention towards the development side but it’s important to note that without proper testing and software testing tools, you’re risking your success and that is not an overstatement. Testing your product means that you are exposing its flaws in the post-development stages which is far better than the flaws being exposed by the users after the release. That’s why the product needs to go through the given stages of testing if you want your product to be successful.
