Beta Testing in Software Engineering

April 13, 2020

Beta Testing

  • In the development of the software, this is a second and last phase of testing.
  • This testing is performed after the alpha testing but before the delivering of the product to the customers or market.
  • Beta testing is also known as “Field Testing” or “Pre-release Testing”.
  • This testing is performed at the client site or the end users or stakeholder of the product. 
  • Beta testing is a type of acceptance testing which focuses on the quality of the software product.
  • The users verifies the software and give feedback to the development team about the functionality, performance, quality and usability of the software.
  • It ensures that software product is ready to use for real time users or public.
  • This testing minimizes product failure risks.
  • It checks the functionality, reliability, security, robustness of the software product.
  • This testing involves only black box testing.
Beta Testing

Goals of Beta Testing :

  • To enhances the quality, performance and functionality of the software product.
  • To reduces the failure risk of the product.
  • To provide feedback from the users to the developers.
  • To check the reliability, robustness, security of the software product.

Process of Beta Testing :

  • Planning
  • Designing
  • Test Product
  • Product Launch
  • Gather and evaluate feedback
  • closure

Advantages of Beta Testing :

  • Beta testing improves the quality of the software product.
  • It minimizes the product failure risks.
  • This testing helps to get feedback from the users.
  • It helps to find defects or issues in the software product.
  • This testing is cost-effective than alpha testing.
  • It is performed at end user’s site.

Disadvantages of Beta Testing :

  • Beta testing is difficult to discover end users willing to test the software product.
  • This testing produces little or useless data.
  • The software engineers have no control over the process of testing.
  • It is a time-consuming process.
  • The defect reporting of the identified defects is not proper and systematic.
  • The testing and test environment is not well defined and under the control of development team.

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