What are different characteristics of beta testing?

Beta testing is carried out after the successful completion of the alpha testing. As alpha testing can be regarded as the internal form of user acceptance testing, similarly beta testing can be regarded as the external form of the user acceptance testing.

- A few versions of the finished software application are released. These testing versions are called the beta versions of the software system.
- These beta versions of the software system are released to a certain limited audience.
- The audience consists of the people who are not a part of the programming team or the software development team.

- This is done so because the more number of people, there will be more exploitation of the software. This is done to ensure that the number of bugs is minimum.
- Sometimes, the software manufacturer company may decide to release the beta versions of the software to a huge open public so as to get more feedback on the quality of the software application.
- Alpha testing is the internal pilot test and beta testing is called the external pilot test.

- Beta testing is carried out on only on the software that has successfully passed the first level unit testing, integration testing, system testing, internal pilot test and removal of the faults or the bugs.
- Beta testing is carried out because the finished software product may still have some minor errors and bugs. In order to find them, user participation is very much needed.
- The beta versions are released to some selected customers only to simulate a normal execution environment for the software application to make it run normally and to spot the problems in such an environment.

- Beta testing phase starts when the software development is complete.
- Beta testing can be thought of as a way of incorporating usability testing.
- The process of releasing the beta versions to the selected customers and other suitable audience is known as beta release.

- Usually after the development of the software system, this is the first time for which the software becomes available to the public.
- The audience selected for carrying out beta testing on the beta version of the software system is called beta testers.
- Beta testers are generally the prospective customers of that particular software manufacturing company who are willing to test the software system free of charge. As a reward for this, they are given the completed and finished software free of cost or sometimes at a reduced price.

- The beta testing phase is known by many names such as prototype, preview, early access or technical preview (TP).
- One is normal beta testing, there’s one more kind of called perpetual beta testing.
- In perpetual beta testing, new features and functionalities are continually added to the software system and therefore, not declaring the beta version as the final release of the company.

- In the context of software development, beta testing is considered as the second phase of the software testing stage.
- Beta testing is nothing but the pre release testing. Beta versions provide a preview of the final release of the firm.
- Alpha testing and beta testing collectively form the acceptance testing. So we can say that the beta testing is the second phase of the acceptance testing.

- Beta testing is conducted in the customer environment by multiple customers.
- Beta testing also ensures that the behavior of the software system is same in the development environment and in the customer environment.
- Beta testing is time consuming and may take weeks and months. The whole application is installed in the customer environment and the development of the software system has been 100 percent completed.