A Beginner’s Guide To Beta Testing Mobile Apps

If you are trying to develop an iOS or Android app, you’ll experience a beta test that often comes after alpha testing. The most crucial target of beta testing apps is to experience real-world exposure and know what your app will be like in the hands of real users. It would be like a soft launch for your app, and the initial users can try their hands at it to inform you what needs to be fixed and what should be left out.

In this new blog, we will talk about all things Beta. Right from where to find the actual testers, how much time should be wasted on beta testing, and how to motivate them to send feedback before the new release.

What Is The Importance Of Beta Testing Mobile Apps?

Before you think of Beta Testing, let us talk about alpha testing. At the time of the first development phase, the application passes through a challenging in-house alpha testing procedure performed by an experienced team of developers and testers.

The main target at this stage is to handle the bugs and the loopholes. The trouble is that it’s hard to copy each positive configuration test query and a bug that would pop up when lots of users try out an app. This is why you raise your app to a bigger group consisting of beta testers.

Beta Testers use your app for a while, make use of it every day for a particular time and send reports about issues, bugs or feedback related to the application. This will help you validate your idea quicker, make sure that your application moves in the proper direction, see whether it fulfills the user’s requirements and whether the features on the app are essential. To be precise, they have to bring out all crucial problems for helping you to improve your application.

As a developer, you’d need to set up an intelligent strategy for testing and communicate the procedure to your testers to keep them active.

How Many Testers Are Required?

Just one amongst every five testers would be testing your application. That’s why, if you have 1,000 testers, you can only expect 200 of them to be sending you honest, solid feedback. Generally, you must aim for 100 to 300 testers to ensure that your application is tested correctly. One thing is there that you wouldn’t need a lot of feedback to work on, and most importantly, you’ll need a helping hand to track the feedback appropriately.

Another factor is whether you have developed the app independently or whether you have a team. Having a team with three developers or quality assurance guys handling the beta testing procedure is the best, as they take care of different problems.

Where Should You Look For Beta Testers?

At the beginning of the startup stage, when you search for the perfect beta testers, also known as your initial adopters, your audience and the evangelists of your future, especially if you are targeting the feedback-driven iterations.

This Is Where You Can Find Beta Testers Free Of Cost:

#Twitter:

Search for testers through the regular hashtags #Betatesting #Testmyapp #Indiedev #Betatesters, or scout for respective testers by looking for various public Twitter lists gathered by various other apps.

#Reddit:

There are some particular subreddits for helping you discover beta testers. A few examples are /r/TestMyApp, /r/alphaandbetausers and /r/AndroidAppTesters.

#Betalist:

These are the maximum active websites for discovering new betas. They also feature at least 2 to 10 fresh startups each day.

#Erli Bird:

The target over here is all about getting high-quality feedback for your application. You can also decide whether or not to list your startup as pre-launch, private access (with a promo code), or a paid focus group.

#Quora:

Most of the early adopters and influencers answer these questions on Quora, so you must ensure that you correctly get connected to them, interact with them and get proper feedback regarding your application.

#Startup.List:

This is just like the Beta.list, but the listings are well controlled and edited on your own. You can quickly build an account and keep changing your startup listings.

#Beta testers.io:

This one is uncomplicated and straightforward to use.

#Hacker News: The Hacker Newsgroup loves trying out all kinds of new things. That’s a beautiful chance to receive the best feedback from a technologically updated audience. Post your app on ShowHN, but don’t forget to stick to the rules.

#BetaBound:

This one is developed by Center Code for collecting, organizing and providing beta testing chances in a continuous stream.

#TNW Market:

You can build a huge list of your startup free of cost, and people would be easily able to select an option for signing up to be one amongst your beta testers team.

#Beta Family:

Beta Family is a group testing platform used for beta testing iOS and Android apps. You can quickly test applications on actual people for receiving the best opinion on user experience.

#AppStorm:

This is the best web and mobile channel to review applications. For your app to be accepted, you need to have a fantastic presentation.

#Killer Startups:

Killer Startups is a superb news website accepting submissions for review.

Along with this list, you can also look for prospective testers by being a part of communities on Google+, Facebook, Linked In, and some essential blogs. You need to reply to particular posts, discuss your app and how it brings about a solution for the problem in the topic and ask people about checking it. This process helps you get honest testers.

Concluding Thoughts

You need to create a proper plan and determine the type and number of beta testers your app requires. It becomes essential to spend time diving deep into the various outlets where you get to notice your beta testers. You can also parallelly define your goals and convey them to the testers to understand that their voices matter for what’s working and what’s not. In that case, you need to provide them with things that would help them remember and appreciate you. Whatever the case be, beta testers are the lifeline of this vital phase for the success of your app.

The efficient testers at Hike qa, a leading Quality Assurance Software Testing company in India, will help you beta-test your mobile apps.

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