The term beta testing refers to the trial of a product before it is finalized and released to the entire public. In the Greek alphabet, beta is the second letter, coming after the first letter, alpha. There is such a thing called alpha testing, but it is not nearly as advertised as beta testing. Alpha testing is conducted by people of the company developing the product. Alpha testing is essentially the production of the product, and most useful for the engineers in their build cycle. This version of testing is definitely useful, but is only the journey to beta testing.
In beta testing, the sample pool is much larger than the number of users testing for alpha. With a larger amount of people, the likelihood of discovering issues is greater. Beta testers should expect there to be bugs and crashes. The discovery of what the public wants is also larger. For example, developers may have been producing a product that has little appeal to the public, and therefore would not have any attraction to them once the product is finally released. Although at this point the product is close to being released, there is still time for version number one of the product to undergo a few modifications to have better user interest.
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Alpha, Beta, and Pilot Testing. (n.d.).NAU. Retrieved April 20, 2014, from http://www4.nau.edu/azregions/testing/beta.htm
Freiler, L. (2011, January 17). Alpha vs. Beta Testing. Centercode Beta Blog. Retrieved April 20, 2014, from http://www.centercode.com/blog/2011/01/alpha-vs-beta-testing/
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