log 63: testing
slacker
I have been absolutely slacking on my blog posts recently. In the past week and a half, I have managed to move to Paris, settle in, and release my friends and family test. In a later post, I’ll talk about how moving went but in this one, I’d like to share a few things I have learned in the past few days of testing my app.
First, getting the app onto Apple’s App Store Connect service was very easy. Everything could be done from xCode and the online portal. What was difficult about the situation was that there weren’t many resources online to aid in the process. During the coding portion of the development, there were tons of previous developers asking questions online, but so far from the testing perspective, it seems very sparse. This caused me to make my first mistake, which was inviting my testers to test a specific build. By doing this, I locked them into testing only version 0.1 build 1. Immediately a friend found a bug, which was inevitable. However, I only invited people to test v 0.1 build 1 which was a problem for when I needed to push updates. After realizing that I have to invite my testers to be a part of a “team” that tests any of the builds, they are able to update it.
Second, I can only have 100 “internal” testers. This means, that by following the previously mentioned process, I can only invite 100 people. This is a perfect number for an alpha! I don’t have 100 friends. Otherwise, I have to use “external” testers, which I’m still not too sure about. I’m fairly certain that is what I initially invited people to because there were 10,000 slots open.
Third, this test is a test of tests. I may have mentioned this previously but as the very first test, it is just a test of the alpha. It’s important that I learned the first and second lessons now because making them later on would have been way worse. My friends and family are more understanding if I have to invite them two times but someone from the public may decide that it’s unprofessional and unorganized.
Fourth, get people to sign the NDA waiver much earlier. This way when I am close to the launch date they only have to focus on getting the app on their phone. The way I did it for the friends and family test was I sent out the waiver, waited for their response, and then sent them an invite manually. Instead, I should have chosen my testers earlier, sent the waiver to be a tester, and then close to the date sent out the invite to the app. It’s a small detail, but still important when thinking about the process of testing.
Moving forward, I need to decide how I am going to shift into the alpha test. I need to identify what aspects of the app I need to improve and what is needed. I’ve already received some feedback so far which is great! I plan on actively posting those comments on my Instagram page and the process I took to fix it.
