I feel public beta for a public product is key in making a really great application for the public. That is exactly the way I work, currently the June To-Do system is up for public beta and is doing great because of it! The public has killed some very small bugs along with some huge ones! I feel if I did not release the system under public beta for free, I would be ripping people off by making them pay to find bugs.

If we as developers think that public beta is crap then how can we truly build an application for the public? Real users give real results in the end; closed testing is great if the project will not be going public. Your application my look different to a 50-year-old person then it does to a 20-year-old person. By allowing your app to go public beat this will give you a better understanding of how people see your application in a real world setting.

I have done many updates to June thanks to many public beta testers! I would have never seen some of the problems if I did not have people test or beta this product. I agree with some of the things said such as saying no to your customer or beta tester. I can’t add every feature known to man in my applications, and many times this is what you may get. Your testers may ask for a million different features to add, but you do need to keep it to the goal by asking yourself a few questions. What will this do for my application? Will this aid in the main gold of this application? Would you use it? If you answer in a positive way to the three questions then it would be a good time to think about adding that feature.

But back to public beat testing, as I have always told my clients that want online applications; testing is the key, then test some more. So what do I do if the application is not a public app? That’s an easy one to answer! After building the application, send it off to the people or office that will be using it. Setup a form for them to submit bugs and requests, that’s easy to do! Collect all the emails and start working on the fixes, once done send it for testing again! You should repeat this process for as long as it takes. Remember, some bugs will not show them self’s right away. Some take days, weeks or even months to show up, so time is your good buddy.

The application was allowing multi account access where a use could login to another users account with JavaScript. This problem is now fixed and will not allow this to happen. We can all rest safely that our data will be safe from hackers and more. This brings on a great point, testing and testing then testing again. Testing is an important part of the life cycle of an application or any user interface.

Find the bugs in testing and lose the risk of down time, loss of money and much more. I send all my application through two stages of testing. One starting with the “Alpha” stage where select users are able to access the application on a secured network to test. Next, I move to closed beta testing where again select users can test and test on an unsecured network. The two stages can last from 2 months and up to 6 months if needed. It’s a great feeling launching secure application that people can trust and feel good about using.

I would like to note that the juneLite PHP version is still running and being supported! Don’t forget that I have opened up the June To-Do system up to public beta, and will be closing the public beta on Jan 15th.

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Simple and easy to use!

JuneLite is very simple and right to the point! It’s not over loaded with un-useful features and pages. We wanted to keep it easy to use and understand, login add lists and get out that’s it! Built for quickness and fast loading, you will love using it!

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