{"id":719,"date":"2006-06-13T10:58:10","date_gmt":"2006-06-13T09:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/2006\/06\/13\/the-bugs-beauty-and-benefits-of-beta-testing\/"},"modified":"2006-06-13T11:02:09","modified_gmt":"2006-06-13T10:02:09","slug":"the-bugs-beauty-and-benefits-of-beta-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/2006\/06\/13\/the-bugs-beauty-and-benefits-of-beta-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"The bugs, beauty and benefits of beta testing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just found out about\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/computerworld.co.nz\/news.nsf\/0\/02F89EE9E31B6DADCC25718800181AAB?OpenDocument\">this article<\/a> which has\u00a0some advice for becoming\u00a0a beta tester along with the bugs, beauty and benefits of beta testing, it&#8217;s quite an interesting read.<\/p>\n<p>here&#8217;s an extract of the last paragraph:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Advice for beta testers<br \/>\n<\/strong>Beta tests are not something to enter into lightly. You may need to put lower priority projects on hold or delay other projects by a few days or even weeks. It&#8217;s a strain because you still have to get the other work out, so you&#8217;re working lunches and overtime, Barton says. So, if the beta test is low-reward or other high-visibility projects are going on, or you don&#8217;t have a test environment prepared, don&#8217;t do it, says Barton.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Negotiate everything upfront<br \/>\n<\/strong>If you want the names of support people or other terms of agreement, make sure you do it upfront and in writing. You can&#8217;t just pretend your previous agreements don&#8217;t exist anymore, Barton says. It has to be done legally and in an organised manner. And, while financial incentives can be issued, be sure you get a commitment before you go into testing, when you still have leverage, he says.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Apply yourself<br \/>\n<\/strong>When you&#8217;re applying to be a beta tester, fill out the form completely, says Michael Fine, director of client services for Centre Code. We get forms where they don&#8217;t give data on what equipment they have to test with, he says. And people who can&#8217;t spell are less inclined to be chosen. Abide by the confidentiality rules, he says, and don&#8217;t expect a miracle. Don&#8217;t set overly high expectations for the product before you get it, he says. This is beta; it&#8217;s being tested. Go in with an open mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Via: <a href=\"http:\/\/testinglondon.wordpress.com\/2006\/06\/12\/beta-testing-benefit-from-the-bug-finding\/\">Software Testing London UK<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just found out about\u00a0this article which has\u00a0some advice for becoming\u00a0a beta tester along with the bugs, beauty and benefits of beta testing, it&#8217;s quite an interesting read. here&#8217;s an extract of the last paragraph: Advice for beta testers Beta tests are not something to enter into lightly. You may need to put lower priority projects on hold or delay other<\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"pull-left padding-top-25\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/2006\/06\/13\/the-bugs-beauty-and-benefits-of-beta-testing\/\" class=\"btn btn-theme\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The bugs, beauty and benefits of beta testing&#8221;<\/span> <i class=\"fa fa-fw fa-long-arrow-right\"><\/i> <\/a>  <\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darrenstraight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}