Frequently, people who do not relate to IT recognize software product testing as a unit process with certain steps and test requirements. But this is much more complicated. Testing the specified product may include tons of diverse checkings.
Alpha testing which is performed at the development side may be one of such test strategies. The software development specialists supervise the users and mark the detected problems.
Such type of checking is conducted at the completion stage of the product development process. But after alpha testing the minor modifications in the product design may be still fulfilled.
The specialists who are not related to the development team or who are on the company’s stuff, in-house test managers or QA engineers execute this testing type.
Alpha testing is a final stage of checking before the product release. The checking process may be divided into two phases.
What are phases of alpha testing?
- The product is checked by the in-house developers. They may use software for debugging or the hardware assist of debuggers. The checking purpose at the first stage - quick bugs detection.
- At the second stage, the product checking moves to the QA specialist for additional testing under the conditions maximally closed to the real ones.
Alpha testing is a simulated exploratory testing which is performed by the potential users or independent QA team at the development side. The ready-to-use software products undergo alpha testing in order to perform acceptance tests before beta testing will be executed.