Fridays at my office are always interesting. They usually involve more meetings than you’d expect (and usually some that START at 4:30pm) and always involve people stopping by my office to chat about very random things. In short, Friday’s are an odd blend of hyper-productivity followed by immediate unproductive times.
Yesterday (which was a Friday, incase you missed it), I had 4 people stop by my office and ask to be part of a beta test we are doing. In each case, I found myself explaining that “beta” means something different than what they thought.
First, some background. Meriam Webster defines beta as “a nearly complete prototype of a product.” As you might expect, WikiPedia gives a bit more in depth description of the word which can be paraphrased as “meets the initial requirement analysis; is locked and won’t be changed unless it is to fix codes or major components that are lacking; (and most importantly) there ARE bugs in it – the testing group’s job is to find them and live with them until they are fixed by the developer(s).”
So let’s recap some of the “is” and “is not’s” of beta software:
- IS: Close to what the finished product will look and operate like.
- IS NOT: The finished product, nor is it ready to be used and relied upon like a “production” application would be.
- IS: Similar in Look & Feel and User Interface to the final release.
- IS NOT: Set in stone (it may change completely).
- IS: Full of bugs.
- IS: Your job to find them, report them and wait for them to be fixed.
- IS NOT: Free. Many people think “beta” means “free” — it may mean “free during beta” but it doesn’t mean you won’t have to own up some $ once its released.
Sure, I’m venting a bit. But I think its important for people to be clear about what they are getting themselves into when they offer to beta test. Its possible that whatever you are beta testing could work perfectly, its also possible it’ll ruin your entire computer and leave you helpless AND that your IT group won’t really feel compelled to help get to it ASAP since it was “beta.” (And believe me, IT professionals understand what this word means – they see it and get excited and scared.)
Perhaps the best way to approach a beta is to avoid it altogether. Example: the NetNewsWire “preview” (not a beta). I like their approach and I may just institute a ban on beta altogether and replace it with this instead:
What people here are saying…