Many have probably heard of beta testing. But you may be less familiar with alpha testing. In this article Jon Seaton, Director of Data Science explains what exactly are beta testing and alpha testing?
Alpha testing and beta testing are key parts of the software delivery lifecycle. Beta testing is so well known that even complete technical novices have heard of it. However, not everyone understands what the terms really mean. Read on to find out.
Software testing is a huge topic which abounds in jargon and terminology. Unit tests, defects, integration testing, test-driven development. Among these terms, one has become widely recognized by Joe Public – beta testing. This is largely thanks to companies such as Apple who run large-scale beta test programs. For most participants in such programs, they represent a chance to get a sneak preview of a new product. But why would a company risk giving away a competitive advantage by revealing their latest features like this?
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The importance of acceptance testing
Most software testing involves developers and skilled test engineers exhaustively testing your software to eliminate bugs and defects. This is called functional testing. The aim is to ensure that your software is stable, bug-free and fit for release. Few things annoy users more than software that crashes, or that functions badly. However, there’s a second type of testing where you verify that your software actually delivers the expected performance and features. This is known as acceptance testing. Both alpha and beta testing are forms of acceptance testing.
What is alpha testing?
Alpha testing is an important part of the software development lifecycle. It is generally the last testing your QA team performs prior to releasing the software outside your company. More formally, alpha testing is the final internal acceptance testing done by your QA team. The aim is to verify that your software really is bug-free before it is used at scale. Alpha testing is coordinated carefully and is usually done by your QA engineers. However, you may also bring in real users, especially if you are creating software for a client.
The role of the product team
Your product team needs to be involved with any form of acceptance testing. They are the ones that know exactly how your software should work. This means they are also able to advise you exactly what you need to check and verify during alpha testing. Moreover, they can provide you with realistic test data for each user journey. This is important because often up till now, the testing will have been done with very artificial test data.
Why is alpha testing important?
Alpha testing is the first time where you start to focus on what your software does rather than on how it functions. There are various analogies we might make, but one of the best is building a car. During development, you test the engine, steering, brakes, chassis, etc. You assemble these and test them as a complete system possibly using a rolling road. At this stage, you have a complete vehicle that runs. However, you now need to take it out on a test track to check things like handling, braking, and performance.
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What is beta testing?
Beta testing is a form of end-user testing, where you expose your product to real users. Beta testing is performed on a stable version of your software that your engineers believe is nearly ready for release. This is released to a small group of users. The aim is to see how your software works under real-world conditions. This should help iron out any stability issues that might affect the backend as well as allowing your product team to verify if features are being used as expected. In some cases, you may also use it as an opportunity to conduct A/B tests to compare two different UI elements. To take the car analogy further, this is like taking your prototype cars out on the open road.
How do you recruit beta testers?You need to recruit a pool of real users to help you. Ideally, these should be users that are familiar with your product or at least are frequent users of similar technology. In general, they are enthusiasts who are prepared to forgive a few rough edges in the software in exchange for getting to use the latest and greatest features.
What else do you need?
Beta testing can only really work well if you instrument your UI and backend properly. This allows you to monitor and understand exactly what is happening when beta testers are using the software. Importantly, it also ensures you have detailed data and crash logs if and when a user stumbles across an unknown bug. You may also arrange for some beta testers to give you explicit feedback, especially if you want to know how popular a new feature is.
Alpha testing vs beta testing
So, what are the specific differences between alpha and beta testing? The following table compares the two approaches.
| Alpha testing | Beta testing | |
| 1. What? | Test every user journey and verify they work as designed | Test how the software performs in real-world conditions |
| 2. Who? | Mainly your internal team | Real end-users |
| 3. How long? | Typically, months, but try to minimize delays if possible. | A few weeks (usually). However, Gmail was in beta for years… |
| 4. Structured? | Rigorously structured, all results recorded and analyzed. | Completely unstructured since you are dealing with Joe Public. |
| 5. What next? | Fix all bugs that are found and correct any minor UI issues that arise. | Fix blocking bugs. Make decisions following A/B tests. Provide feedback to your product team for the next version. |
Going beyond alpha and beta testing
Some of the biggest software companies in the world have rather subverted the concept of beta testing. There are two new kids on the block when it comes to testing out new features on Joe Public. The first is called canary testing. Here, you randomly select a small group of your users and give them the new software. Importantly, there is no choice or consent on their part. They may not even realize they are being used as part of a test. Your aim is to compare their user experience with that of all your other users. The second concept is dark launching. Here, a new feature is released but it’s not activated. The idea is to check that the software is still stable with the new feature present. You then use a so-called feature flag to start enabling this feature for users, potentially combining this with canary testing or A/B testing.
Some companies go further still. They release software to anyone that wants it but continue to call it beta software for many years. The aim here is to avoid any potential litigation or bad PR arising from issues that may arise. It is also used as a coded way of saying they reserve the right to change the software. In effect warning you “this software ain’t stable!â€
Last Word
Both alpha and beta testing are key parts of the QA process. Collectively, they ensure you will release stable software that works at scale and behaves as designed and as users expect. If you didn’t do this sort of testing, you risk disappointing your end-users or hurting customer experience. New tools leveraging machine learning can help in the creation and modeling of these types of acceptance tests, making these techniques more accessible than ever before for small and large companies alike.
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