BETA TESTING

Beta Testing : The phase that has flummoxed many a great services. Nikhil had presented a Bloozle demo in the last BarCamp and had asked volunteer beta testers to directly register on the site and give feedback - it was an open beta that way. We got some feedback , however not all beta testers were our target audience. More so, so many people tested but almost everyone did it 'on the surface' - the responses were not detailed and hence not much use to us.

Considering this as an inevitable consequence of the exercise, Nikhil and Hemant were in favour of re-employing a similar method to gather beta testers for the vastly improved Bloozle at the third edition of BarCamp in Mumbai. However, I had my apprehensions. We deliberated on the issue and I directed them to Joel's article on beta testing. It was the tipping point in our discussion and then we decided to go ahead with a closed - invitation only beta.

I can't over emphasize the benefits of this technique, but the fall outs could also prove irksome. For example we may not have the critical user density to correctly weigh in the feedback or we may miss out on quite a few of our target users. None of this is a trivial issue. However, what we need at this moment is direct, brutal feedback from our correct target user base so that we can launch the bug free, feature rich version to the world at large in as small a time frame as possible. So we figured this is the way forward for us currently.

However, if you are I-need-to-try-out-every-new-web-application type of geek (like us) , do drop us a mail. You could very well be the maven (early adopter) we are looking for. Now, that I have referred to mavens, I may as well recommend Tipping Point to you! A quick, fun read.