Beta Testing

In the last topic, we learned Alpha Testing. And in this topic, we will study Beta Testing. In this, we will study an introduction to Beta Testing, we will take an example and we will see why Beta Testing is important.  What is Beta Testing? Beta Testing is performed by the real user. For this, There is no need for a tester. The real user, who is really going to use the application in the real sense in their environment, only those people do Beta Testing. so, Beta Testing is an external user acceptance also. We release the Beta version of the software, so that the end user can give good feedback and we can improve the quality of that particular application. Whatever feedback we get from the customer on Beta products, the quality because of that product will increase. This testing helps us to test the product in a real time environment. Like you can see that we have taken examples here. You can see that Firefox Beta is there, Chrome Beta is there. In the beta version what will happen, when you will install, Imagine that you have an android phone; Nexus 6. and you are using Marshmallow OS in it. And the Chrome Beta that is installed in it is giving some issues. Let’s say that you surfed on Chrome Beta for 2 hours and then it crashed. Then again you surfed for 1.5 hour  and then it crashed again. So, what will you do?  You will report to Google that  your Chrome Beta product, let’s say 42 version, is crashing here like this. With this what will happen? They will get to know about this and they will implement the particular feedback in the next version and avoid crashing. There is another name for Beta Testing, it is called Field Testing. Why is Beta Testing important? Beta Testing  is important as any bug that is identified at the time of Beta Testing. That is called Beta version bug, it is assigned to the development team and the bug needs to be fixed on high priority. At the time of Beta Testing, if the Beta Testing software is very critical then the actual launch of the software will be delayed. Because without fixing critical bugs, we cannot launch. So any bugs of the Beta testing version that came are called Beta version bugs. What will happen with Beta Testing? The product failure risk will be validated by the customer. With customer feedback the product quality will also improve. It will be cost effective so that we can take the feedback and work on it. There is one feedback which will be very generalized. Imagine that there is a particular site, which is not opening in Google Chrome but it is opening in all others, so it might be an issue. So, there will be common feedback that all the customers will give, so because of that there will be common bug fixes that they will have. Right? Because of Beta Testing,  goodwill stays  with the customers and will get customers' satisfaction. As the customer will give feedback frequently  and the company will improve their product frequently. So, we saw Beta Testing, we saw one Beta Testing example and we even saw why Beta Testing is  important.Now, In the next topic we will see Acceptance Testing.