On 31.12.2009, at 05:59, benzado wrote: > I've read a lot of advice for figuring out when you're ready to ship. A > related question on which I haven't heard much discussion, is when are you > ready to beta test?
Keep in mind "beta" is a designation of a phase. There should be other test phases. There are alpha tests etc. If you can afford it, pay someone who has experience with doing QA to test your application *before* the beta test. The "beta" designation is for "feature complete" tests. I.e. the application itself should be in the state you intend to ship it in, all features are in there, all text, all graphics should be final. Then you beta test it so you can discover new bugs that you'd otherwise have missed. > Should you wait until the product is nearly ready to ship, and task your > testers with stress-testing and looking for little things that you missed? > Or, should you distribute betas as soon as they are usable, to get feedback > on feature designs while it is still early enough to make big changes? You should definitely do the latter, but that wouldn't be a beta. Also, you'l likely want a different batch of testers for both phases. Traditionally, "beta" was the test phase that went to users outside the office. But for an Indie developer, that distinction will probably not work. I guess an interpretation today would be: Do tests early and often, but privately, with people who are under NDA. Do beta tests once everything is in there, and un-implemented or slipped features have been removed/hidden. There you can send it to people that may talk about it, and get them to test it on a wider variety of machines, under more use cases etc. > My fears are, beta too soon, and you'll have a drawn out beta period in which > testers lose interest and wander away. Beta too late, and you might wind up > redesigning features because you didn't get feedback early enough. Correct observation, except for terminology. Test early, beta late. Cheers, -- Uli Kusterer "The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..." http://www.lookandfeelcast.com
