Beta Testing Goals

One great thing about beta testing is that it lets product developers quickly and inexpensively tackle a wide variety of goals that can dramatically improve their products. Quality is often the primary goal of beta testing, but there are many additional objectives that a beta program can address.

Click the links below for details about each beta testing goal, or click here to show/hide them all.

Beta Testing Objectives

  • Improve Your Product QualityQA can't run tests with every platform, peripheral, or product that might interact with yours, which results in hidden defects. Beta testing helps cover that gap by providing real-world usage in an incredible variety of environments. It's also very common for beta testers to discover a number of show-stopping bugs that QA was unable to discover for other reasons.
  • Determine and Improve UsabilityIn addition to providing real-world environments, beta testing gives you insights into real-world, unscripted usage patterns for your product. Beta participants will provide detailed feedback about usability challenges they encounter, allowing you to either make immediate changes or prepare your support team to assist customers with the issues.
  • Measure and Improve Performance in Real-World EnvironmentsMany products perform great in a lab environment, but fail to achieve the same level of performance "in the wild". Beta testing offers a much-needed predictive benchmark for real-world performance of both clients and servers. This is especially true for products that are heavily affected by the Internet and load such as web sites and multi-player games.
  • Drill Down Into Quality and Acceptance of Specific FeaturesBeta tests don't need to encompass the entire product. Many times it's useful to test new or updated features with real customers prior to release. Beta testing offers a very quick and inexpensive method to do so. The goal may be to improve quality or gauge the acceptance and value of specific features.
  • Improve Documentation Quality and ComprehensionDocumentation can always be improved, often right up to the release of the product, making it a great goal for beta testing. Beta participants are generally the first unbiased customers to rely on your documentation for its intended purpose. They can tell you how much it helped them understand and use your product, as well as identify areas that need more attention.
  • Discover Product Support RequirementsBeta testing offers an extremely effective method of uncovering the most common issues your support team will field at release. These insights allow them to make preparations that greatly increase customer satisfaction while dramatically reducing support costs. This is especially true for severe issues found during beta that cannot be fixed in time for release.
  • Test Infrastructure Related to the ProductMost products today are bolstered by systems that are required to effectively deliver and maintain the product. Common examples are e-commerce and support sites. These systems may be tested as part of a beta program, generating feedback that greatly improves the quality of a customer's overall product experience.
  • Identify Market Requirements for Future RevisionsProduct development is often plagued by a paradox. Future revisions must undergo planning even though the products they're based on aren't officially released to the public. Due to the timing and audience of beta tests, they offer a unique opportunity to factor real-world acceptance and quality results into future planning efforts.
  • Achieve Compliance with a Quality StandardWhile not the favorite topic of many product managers, most quality standard systems (including both ISO 9001 and Six Sigma) include requirements to include forms of customer feedback as part of the development and release process of a product. Beta testing is an excellent way to achieve compliance with these requirements.
  • Obtain User Testimonials for Marketing and Sales PurposesBeta participants are the first customers who possess real, first-hand experience with your product. This presents the opportunity to collect valuable reviews and testimonials for your Marketing and PR teams. With high-cost or B2B products, you can also use beta participants as customer references, so your Sales team can hit the ground running.
  • Build Awareness for an Upcoming ProductPublic betas are now common in the release strategies for web applications, entertainment products, and more. The goal is to build viral, wide-spread awareness (and vast amounts of feedback) by offering a free version of the product, with the understanding that issues are still being worked out and expectations should be a bit lower than normal.
  • Lean Startup MethodologyAnother common strategy today (most often in web sites and web applications) is the concept of releasing a product in an extremely early state, then relying on real customer usage and feedback to guide the bulk of product development. Rapid iterations based on what you learn takes the guess work out of product marketing.
Are you thinking about goals because you're planning a beta test? Download our free software and hardware beta test planning kits.
Next Steps Resources