Alpha and Beta Testing of Products

Alpha  and  Beta Testing  of Products:

•  Alpha testing is one of the most common software testing strategies used in software development. It is specially used by product development organizations.
• This test takes place at the developer’s site. Developers observe the users and note problems.
• Alpha testing is testing of an application when development is about to complete. Minor design changes can still be made as a result of alpha testing.
• Alpha testing is typically performed by a group that is independent of the design team, but still within the company, e.g. in-house software test engineers, or software QA engineers.

Advantages of Alpha Testing: 

• Provides better view about the reliability of the software at an early stage
• Helps simulate real time user behavior and environment.
• Detect many showstopper or serious errors

Disadvantages of Alpha Testing:

• In depth functionality of the software cannot be tested as it is still under development stage.

Beta Testing

• Beta Testing is also known as field testing. It takes place at a customer's site. It sends the system/software to users who install it and use it under real-world working conditions
• Beta Testing of a product is performed by "real users" of the software application in a "real environment" and can be considered as a form of external User Acceptance Testing
• Beta version of the software is released to a limited number of end- users of the product to obtain feedback on the product quality. Beta testing reduces product failure risks and provides increased quality of the product through customer validation.
• Beta Test provides a complete overview of the true experience gained by the end users while experiencing the product

Advantages of Beta Testing:

• Reduces product failure risk via customer validation
• Beta Testing allows a company to test post-launch infrastructure.
• Improves product quality via customer feedback
• Cost effective compared to similar data gathering methods

Disadvantages of Beta Testing:

• Doesn’t allow any control over the testing as it is carried out in real environment and not under the lab environment
• Finding the right beta users and maintaining their participation could be a challenge