Beta Test Tutorial for iOS: How To Host a Beta Test for your iOS App

How Can the Beta Testers Install the App?

When I send the beta testers the .zip and .mobileprovision (which I usually do by uploading to my web site and sending them a link rather than clogging their email with a large attachment), I also send them the following instructions:

1. Download [insert link to zip file here]
2. Unzip the file. There should be two files inside: a file ending with “.ipa” and a file ending with “.mobileprovision”.
3. Drag-and-drop the .mobileprovision file and the .ipa file onto Applications in your iTunes library on Windows, or the iTunes icon on a Mac
4. In iTunes, select your device and open the Applications tab. Sync applications and the new app should be checked.
5. Sync your device and try out the app!

Also, here’s a link to a useful guide that you can refer the beta testers to if they get stuck.

How Should I Solicit Feedback?

When you send your beta testers the link to the app zip and the instructions, that’s also a good time to explain what sort of feedback you’re looking for.

For example, you could point out particular areas you’re hoping for them to test or particular things you’re uncertain about/are hoping for feedback on. You could even list particular questions you’d like them to answer.

Here are the questions that I ask for my beta test:

1. Things you like
2. Things you don’t like, or things that are confusing or frustrating
3. Ideas for improvements you have
4. Bugs you may have found (with instructions for how to reproduce if possible)

Basically I try to keep the questions to a minimum in order to encourage free-flow thoughts and responses, which I find the most valuable kind of feedback to get.

What Should I Do With the Feedback?

If all goes well, at this point you should have several emails back from your beta testers with a bunch of feedback. Some feedback will be positive encouragment, some will be bugs they found, and MOST of what you’ll probably get is ideas for new features and improvements.

This is valuable stuff, so the first thing you should do is make sure you keep good track of it! I like using Evernote to keep track of all ideas for improvements people suggest for any of my apps (as well as potential blog posts! :])

Next, you should look over the ideas and implement as many as you have time for before launch. Of course, you probably can’t do everything, so you can prioritize by doing the ones that are requested by several different people, would be especially awesome to add, or are easy low-hanging fruit to implement.

It’s not necessary, but is often a nice touch to let the beta testers who came up with the idea know that you actually implemented their idea, they’re sure to appreciate that their ideas came in handy!

How Many Responses Should I Expect?

As far as I can tell, the number of responses you get varies a lot based on the people you invite and your app. But for a point of reference, in my most recent beta test I had:

• 45 signups
• 16 invites sent
• 12 responded with their UDIDs
• 9 responded with feedback

So, as you can see not everyone will respond with feedback. So in my case, for future betas I’ll probably plan on inviting around double the amount of people than the amount of feedback emails I’m hoping to end up with.

Conclusion

All in all, having a beta test is a lot of work, but can help lead to a more polished app if you take up some of the beta tester’s advice and suggestions.

But is it worth it given all of the time and effort? I think that is completely debatable, and probably dependent on the app too. What do you guys think – what do you do for your apps?