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5 TIPS TO BETA TESTING YOUR FAMOUS WEBSITE

September 30, 2018 website

You’ve developed a great idea for a business, done the preliminary business planning, and are ready to create an awesome WordPress site.  You have acquired the proper tools such as those discussed in 10 MUST-HAVE PLUGINS WITH A NEW WORDPRESS SITE, developed  your FAMOUS site and have done some preliminary testing yourself.  But it’s important to make sure everything functions and is user-friendly before you launch your site .  Are you planning to perform beta testing?

Just as beta testing is important to ensure software performs correctly or to ensure escape rooms are designed well, beta testing is also important to websites.

Here are 5 tips to beta-testing your website:

  1. Decide what type of tests to perform.
  2. Write a Test Plan.
  3. Find volunteers or hire beta-testers to perform the testing.
  4. Fix the items found in testing.
  5. Retest.

1. DECIDE WHAT TYPE OF TESTS TO PERFORM

First of all, what is beta testing? Beta testing can often be a term used to represent multiple types of tests.  For example, it can include alpha testing where the intent is to attempt to “break” or in the case of a website, get an undesired repsponse such as a broken/link 404 error.  It can include useability testing to see if the site is understandable and not ambiguous to the user, the user can navigate quickly and easily, and evaluate page performance (e.g., load time).  When deciding what tests to perform, note that a scaled approach can be applied here – if the site is basic and doesn’t have much code running behind it, these tests can be somewhat basic and simple.

2. WRITE A TEST PLAN

Next, write a test plan. The test plan will document what is it that you wish to test.  The framework of the plan will be based on what type of tests you wish to perform.  While test plans can get complex for software testing, a test plan for webiste testing can be much simpler.  Depending on the complexity of the website code, it may be prudent to develop test cases with pass/fail criteria.  However, the vast majority of website, in particular those for small businesses, should not require that level of testing.

The test plan should also provide a structure and desired feedback from the test.  In the example below, we structured the test by explaining the content and components page by page.  This may seem like a lot, but we have a lot of components such as a directory, forum, and blog and wanted to ensure that everything plays together.

3. FIND VOLUNTEERS OR HIRE TO BETA TESTERS TO PERFORM THE TESTING

You can often find friends or co-workers that have some knowledge of testing softare or websites.  The benefit is that you won’t likely need to pay them, those it’s probably a good idea to offer something for their efforts.  The downside is that these individuals may not have enough experience to catch particular bugs or have a systematic approach to testing.  Also, their availability may cause the testing stage to take longer than anticipated.

You can hire individuals to test.  For example, Betabound provides a service where you can submit an item for testing.  The benefit is that these individuals likely have a great deal of experience to provide for a thorough test.  The downside is that this approach may be more expensive.  The potential tradeoff is expenses versus quality.

In either case, you will need feedback from the testers.  This can be verbal communication, email, or more formal documentation such as a form.  If the tester found a bug, it’s important to understand what he/she was trying to do when they encountered the bug.  Reproducing the bug is desirable, otherwise how do you know what should be done to fix it and how to retest to ensure that it is fixed?

4. FIX THE ITEMS FOUND IN TESTING

Depending on your skill set and the complexity of your site, you may be able to fix it.  The challenge here is to figure out what changes need to be made.  Wording and form changes can be simple.  If you find one or more bugs in the theme acquired, it may be more difficult for you to fix it and ensure your fixes won’t be overwritten once the theme is updated.

In this latter example, you should try to see if the person/company who sold you the theme will fix it.  Most of the time they will fix it because they want to provide good service and this helps improve their product.  If not you may need to hire someone to do it.  For example, we hired Codeable to do some minor fixes to our directory search to better handle searching escape rooms across the world and return relevant nearby results.

5. RETEST

Finally, you will need to retest your site.  Depending on the extent of the fixes, you will certainly want to test the items that were fixed.  Depending on how extensive and intertwined the code is, you may want to test other items to ensure that the fixes didn’t break anything else.  Again this is likely more of an issue for software development, but there is so much code running on these WordPress sites, you never know!

ETR SITE TEST PLAN

The purpose of beta testing is to perform small scale testing of the functionality and content on the website. Beta testing is less focused on finding and fixing bugs, and is more focused on ensuring that the site itself is clear and easy to use for all of the anticipated user groups.  While beta testing can be very detailed and time-intensive, we at ETR understand everyone is busy, so we are streamlining this to allow you to choose which tests you want to perform.

First, we will start off by giving an overall mission from the business plan and details of the target audience and tasks they may perform on this site.  Then we will walk through each page and briefly discuss the components.  The final part will be a simple of checklist of things to look for.

ETR Mission Statement:

The mission for this web business is to bring players, room designers, and game room businesses together to exchange information and help individuals and businesses to be successful.  The goals to fulfill this mission include but are not limited to:

  • Provide entertainment to players via locating escape rooms
  • Provide information to players for room discounts and provide products (e.g., game card) to players for getting discounts
  • Communicate/provide to players ideas, instruction, and products (digital and affiliate products) on creating mini-rooms
  • Communicate to designers and escape room businesses needs/desires of players

Now, let’s get into the pages and components, and what you can test:

Home Page – This landing page has the following components:
  • Landing area.  Here is a brief statement about the purpose of the site with a hero image and two buttons.  Here you can test the two buttons
    • Directory – navigates to the directory page
    • Add Business – if you haven’t purchased a package, clicking this link will take you to select/purchase a membership. All memberships are “FREE” for this test so that you won’t be purchasing anything.  Then you will go to the page to add a business.
  • Search by Category.  Selecting one of these icons will navigate to the directory filtered by this category.  You can test by clicking to see if the filtered directory results are for the category clicked.
  • Featured Events.  Businesses can identify featured events such as new rooms or discounts.  Clicking on an item will take you to the directory listing for that business.
  • Blog Posts.  Clicking on a post will navigate to the blog article.
  • Opt-In Join Newsletter Form.  This form is used to subscribe to a ConvertKit subscription list.  If you test and don’t wish to remain in the list, please include “test” in the email address.
Welcome Page – This page elaborates on the use of this site and has the following components:
  • Welcome Area.  This area elaborates on the purpose of the site and links to a relevant blog article.
  • List of Industry Segments.  This area summarizes the segments.
  • Discussion of Each Segment.  This area provides examples of how each segment might use this sight.  Each has an Opt-In join.  If you test and don’t wish to remain in the list, please include “test” in the first name.
  • Team ETR.  This component is static (no links or anything to test).
  • Testimonials.  Nothing to test here.  If you have positive feedback, we would love to share it here!
Directory Page – This page contains the directory that provides business (and player) listings and has the following components:
  • Search Fields.  Providing search criteria and clicking the magnifying glass will perform a query using the search criteria.
  • Filter Buttons/Fields.  These will allow to filter the results by rating, city, etc.
  • Listing Results.  This area displays a maximum of 12 results per page.  Clicking on an item will navigate to the business listing.  Try claiming a business.
  • Navigation Buttons.  Clicking a button with navigate forward or backward.
Forum Page – This page has a standard forum.  Please test by adding posts and/or replying to other posts.
Products Page – This page is a hand-off to shop.escapetheroomz.com.

We created a sub-domain that uses a shop theme.  The shop is an affiliate shop, where we recommend Amazon items.  If you test purchasing an item, please go no further than being re-directed to an Amazon shopping cart unless you are interested in actually purchasing the product(s).

We are really interested in feedback on this process.  For example, do you feel comfortable shopping here and purchasing on Amazon or would you prefer we carry the products and provide at a markup price.

Blog Page – This is a standard blog page.  Clicking on a blog summary will navigate to the blog article.  Note that the social icons are functional and will share the item if you select one.
Resources Page – This page contains recommended products for creating websites.  Please test the links but do not purchase 3rd party products unless you wish to purchase a product aside from this test.
More Menu Item – Several menu items are under this drop-down menu item:
  • Advance Search.  This search feature allows users to query the directory using zipcode, category, search radius, and age of the listing.
  • Login/Register.  This page allows users to register for an account and/or sign in.  When testing, let us know if you think this item is needed given the menu button.
  • Get Listed.  This is the same as the button on the home page to add a directory business listing.
  • Memberships.  This page lists the available membership packages.
  • FAQs.  This page shows the frequently asked questions.  Feedback from this beta test will help us formulate questions and answers.  Clicking on a question will reveal the answer.
  • Contact Form.  This form will provide a means to contact ETR and shows a map/location.  This item is also located on the bottom menu.
  • Privacy.  Our privacy policy page. This item is also located on the bottom menu.
  • Terms and Conditions.  Our terms and conditions page. This item is also located on the bottom menu.
  • Beta Test Evaluation Form.  Here is the form to document the results of your test.
Sign Up/In and My Account Button – This button allows a user to create an account and sign in.  Once logged in, this button provides access to the user’s account.
Miscellaneous Tests:
  • 404 Test. Try entering https://escapetheroomz.com/???? where ???? is random text.  Is a 404 warning page returned?
  • Browser Test.  Try a couple of pages using different browsers to looks for problems in page layout.
  • Responsive Test.  Try accessing a couple of pages using a mobile device or tablet to look for problems in page layout.

Test Checklist:
  • Functional test – does the page/component function correctly?  If you encounter a bug, what steps were you performing that revealed the bug?  Can you reproduce the error?  Also, do pages load too slowly?
  • Usability test – Does the layout and components make sense?  Did you have any problems completing a task?  Do you think the provided services will fulfill the needs of the escape room industry?  Are additional features needed?
  • Esthetics test – Quality of site layout and images; overall look of site.  Did you enjoy browsing the site?  Does the site have a professional look?  If no to either, how/where can we improve?
  • Link test – Do links function correctly?
  • Miscellaneous – Do we clearly state that we have affiliate relationships to other companies?
Documenting the Results:  Please use the Beta Test Evaluation Form located under the More menu.

Have you organized beta testing your site, or have you been a beta tester? Did we miss anything?  If so, please comment below (must be logged into your account) and let us know your thoughts about beta testing a site!

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