TryBeta.com

Today a discussion in the ASP Newsgroups started about potential users who  feel it may be ok to steal software if they can not afford it. Unfortunantly, not everyone is able to have the opportunity to purchase your software, and thats normal for any product. The problem is that because software is so easy to steal, customers don’t really understand the consequences of their actions. Its not as if these same people would rob a Sony store for a 50 inch plasma TV just because they want it but cant afford it.

For the users like this who can not afford to buy your software, surely they must understand the risks of downloading illegal cracks with the potential of viruses or spyware. Even more so, they may be willing to donate some money, but without any push, they quickly forget.

An obvious reaction would be to try and do everything you can to prevent these users from being able to steal your software. Using dongles, online validation, multiple registration checks etc… are a few ways developers can fight this problem. However, do we really want to put ourselves in the same situation as the Music Industry put themselves?

I believe we can turn these users into our beta testers and get their valuable feedback. In return, these users will get substantial discounts or free copies of their favorite products. These users are not thieves or pirates. They are everyday people who do not have the means to pay for your software for whatever reason. What if we could say to them “Try our software, tell us what you think, and we’ll give you a free version with no viruses or spyware”? This would provide a win-win situation for both software developers and software users.

Seth Godin did a presentation where he speaks about things being broken. He says that things are only broken if you think they are broken. Which means being broken is simply a matter of opinion. What’s broken to one person can be totally fine to another.

The problem with developing bug free software is not that it is impossible to remove coding errors, but that it is impossible to make a product that is not seen as “broken” by all of your users. Not all users will agree on the way you have implemented a feature, or how your software works in general.

One important point from the presenation which applies to software development is;

I’m not a fish
In the presentation, Seth gives examples of people who design things which they obviously have never used before. For example, a car interior where the cup holders are right in front of the air conditioner. Try placing a cup of coffee there every morning.

Your software is being developed for your users, not necessarily for you. You have to have the feedback of your actual users during development, otherwise you may make quick design decisions which actually prevent people from using your software effectively. Essentially limiting what your software can do (ie, you can’t use the A/C while using the cup holders).

In software development, often authors will try to do everything they can to tell users how to use a certain feature properly. However, the user may be so used to doing something a certain way that just by habit, they use the feature how they believe it should be used. It may never occur that instead of trying to “fix” the users behavior, they should fix the application’s behavior.

It’s much more expensive and time consuming to change design flaws later in development. Hopefully with TryBeta, you will be able to work with your users to come up with the most useful design implementations as early as possible.

Two problems that small developers face, which I believe are related are;

1) Too many customer support inquiries and not enough time to handle them all
2) The lack of feedback from beta testers

All software is technically always in beta since a perfectly stable product will never be a reality. If this is the case, then why not continue to encourage any kind of feedback at all times, even after the beta process?

Customer feedback should be encouraged and never taken for granted. This includes any kind of support inquiries or trouble shooting issues.

Often developers get the same users sending the same problem in over and over. All this means is that there is a problem with the underlying feature or process in your software. This is the time where you must reconsider how a feature was implemented. Does it function the same as other applications that the customer might be used to? What are they expecting the application to do at that point?

I believe the most important way to encourage customer feedback as well as reduce the time it takes to reply to customer support inquiries is to build a community for your users where it is easy for them to share ideas, issues, or questions they have about your product.

There are many ways to build your community, however, building a large community of users takes time, especially when you are just starting out. Here are some tips to consider when developing your community.

1) Make it easy for users to share and talk
Create an online discussion forum for your users where they can communicate with each other as well as brainstorm solutions to problems they are having. When you allow users to collaborate like this, you will learn about how they are using your products and how you can improve usability, which features need be added or changed, and what major issues customers are having. Your customers will often have creative ways to implement ideas or inspire new features.

2) Make it as easy as possible for legitimate users to participate
A major problem online is SPAM. You don’t want to have your boards filled with SPAM bots posting links back to their sites. This often means having email verification to insure actual, legitimate users are participating. To help with this issue, make sure each customer who orders your product knows about your community. Even better, create an account for them automatically with their purchase so they can start participating. This way you know they are legitimate and you remove many barriers that may have prevented them from participating

3) Actively Participate in your own community
Showing that you are part of the community is very important to customers. If they know that this is the best way to get help or provide suggestions, they will be more likely to participate rather than send private email messages to support.

4) Make your members feel special
If certain members are posting a lot and helping other users, make them feel real special. Give them an important status such as YourProduct Guru or provide them with pre-release products and ask them for their personal feedback. This is a great way to turn active users into beta testers.

5) Remove unimportant features from forum/community software
Most forums come with many features that are not needed. This includes calendars, birthday reminders, buddy lists etc… Remove or disable the unneeded features of your forums to reduce any clutter and confusion. Focus on allowing users to share ideas and experiences.

6) Integrate your forum into your web site
It is very important to make the look and feel of your community match the rest of your web site. Create custom skins and choose the colors that blend with your site. This helps create trust and allows your members to take your community seriously.

7) Kick off your community by making it a useful resources
A good way to kick start a community is by filling it with useful tidbits of information relevant to the topic. By finding resources that are useful to your members you will encourage them to come back and seek new information. This doesn’t always have to be cutting edge news, just something you think the members will find useful.

Advertise your online community as a benefit to your software
Your online community should be seen as a benefit that customers get when they purchase or use your products. A successful online community is difficult to imitate, so turn this into an advantage over your competition. When customers purchase your products, they are also joining a large community of users, let them know that.

You’re software is for your customers, so their feedback is the most valuable resource you can ask for.

Trying to finish up the last feature…comments.

Then we’ll give it a quick bug test on our end and open it up for beta testing. Fill out the form on the front page to be notified when we launch!

Who is going to use your software? What kind of experience will your users have? Will they read through your entire manual? Does your manual even make sense to your users?

There are lots of questions to consider in software development. The overall goal of software development is to get end users to use your software. As a software developer you’ve probably gotten emails from users along the lines of;

“Your software doesn’t work” or “Your product crashed my computer, fix it”

One of biggest problems in software development is not necessarily that it is impossible to fix all coding bugs, but that potentially millions of people will use your software the way they believe it should be used. They may have grown to expect that certain functionality works a certain way or they may have come from a different operating system where a certain feature worked differently. Your users will no doubt find a way to use your program in a way that you have not thought of before.

TryBeta aims to help you with both of these issues. It will link you up with your actual potential user base to find high quality, reliable beta testers. These users will know your software is in beta stage and will not expect anything more. Pending your approval, these users will actively test and report bugs, usability issues, feature requests and suggestions. You will be provided with real feedback by the very same people who will be using your software.

In order to find quality beta testers, TryBeta provides a two way feedback system between beta testers and developers. Without giving to much away, developers will easily be able to get a good idea about how testers have performed in the past.

TryBeta is targeted towards the small company and independent software vendor. It provides them with the resources to conduct their beta program with the added security of knowing they are getting reliable beta testers.

The beta process is not just about testing your code. It’s also about testing the viability of your product in the market. This is what TryBeta helps do for the software developer.

Integrity and security of the web site is very important to us. If you don’t want your product released to all beta testers on the web site, you don’t have to. We have included features in the web site which allow you to control how public you would like to make your software.

Some developers have asked how beta testers will be attracted to the web site. I’ll save what we’re going to do for beta testers for the next post…

Do features sell software? When you create products that can do more than your competitor’s products, does that give you the advantage?

David Pogue, the personal technology columnist for The New York Times, has an interesting, and very entertaining presentation on designing both hardware and software that is easy to use, not necessarily packed with features.

If you are a software developer, you should definitely check it out. Our hope is that with TryBeta you will get the feedback from your potential users before you release it to the public. This way changes that you have to make can be done earlier and before you leave a potential bad impression with the public.

This is also one thing we are trying to accomplish with the design of TryBeta. Recently we were working on some design issues with the Developer’s administrative area. We want to make sure it is real easy to use, even though the people who will be using this section will already be experienced computer users. We cut some features that did not fit into the design and will add them later on as we get feedback from developers.

We’ve added a few new enhancements today though. I’ll have a longer post over the next few days which will answer some common questions about the site.

Thanks for visiting TryBeta.com. Over the next few weeks I will post some more info on what exactly TryBeta is what it will do for software developers and software users.

Right now we are completing some final fixes on the web site. We are very close to finishing everything up. Afterwords we will be focusing on security and reliability of the web site. Its been a pretty big job, but everything is coming togethor nicely. Check back soon, and remember to sign up at TryBeta.com to be notified when the site launches. After the initial stage of testing, developers who sign up for the notification will be the first to get to logon to the site. We will be limiting sign ups, so remember to get listed as soon as possible.