Users to help web project tester

Why do we need testers recruited from users

It happens that the internal testing department cannot verify some things, since they require, for example, mass or calling simultaneously from several IP addresses, which is difficult to reproduce in office conditions. Then, the testing department comes to the aid of users who are willing to donate, in order to improve the quality of the project, to help the administration.

Their help can be different, from testing a new functional, to analyzing errors from appeals from other users, for example from the forum. If we talk about the development of online games, their help can be very useful if you are going to somehow change the game balance, or introduce new functionality, they both players can tell how the balance will change in the game and how users will react.

How to understand that this particular user can help the project

For example, consider a kind of browser-based online game that has existed for some time and is actively developing. We have an established community that communicates on the forum, of which we will carry out the selection.

First of all, it is worth paying attention to the users who actively communicate on the forum, those who help newcomers, the administration is not frustrated only because it is the administration, and whose comments on the news about the update are constructive. You can also look at the error topics, if the user actively posts the errors found, then maybe he can help us with testing.
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We assume that we have found a number of people willing and able to help the project. Next we need to see how they will behave in terms of setting tasks and describing bugs. To do this we need a test server with pre-simulated errors. We start there users, we give the task to check any element of the game, with a request to post all the errors found, for example, in the Google form, indicating its nickname or name. As a result of this test, we will be able to determine how adequately the user can find and describe errors.

Communication with external testers

There are several options for organizing communication with "externalists". The first option: if tasks require massiveness, it is worth dividing “externalists” into teams and assigning a leader in each of them with whom you will directly communicate and who will give tasks to specific people, collect error reports and send them to you. The second option: “general chat”, for example Skype conference, in which all testers sit and can communicate with each other without any limits and ask for help in completing tasks. In this case, it is necessary to adjust the setting of tasks, for the first time, shared tables are suitable, in the future you can start using bug-tracking systems, such as Mantis, for convenience of recording who checked how many tasks and how many errors were found. The third option is “individual”, that is, you communicate with each tester personally, give him a task, he gives you a report on the bugs found.

Now a little about motivation

At first, people agree to work for the idea, then you need to keep them if they provide good help. Here, an igromechanika will come to our aid, as a rule, all browser games are built on a free-to-play system, which makes getting some things difficult or impossible without real money infusion, because we didn’t sign a contract with testers, then pay real we cannot give them money, respectively, we can give them support in the game, “drawing” them some “real” currency in the game, but how much it depends on you and testers, for example: we have 3 testers, all testers, if they worked this month, we “pay” a certain Ummah, let it be the equivalent of 300 rubles. Tester number one processed 10 tasks and found 5 bugs in them, add 100 more “rubles” to it, tester number two processed one but a very big task, and found 15 bugs in it, add 100 “rubles” to it as well, tester number three handled 3 small tasks but found one critical bug not related to any one task, we will add 200 “rubles” to it. So we pay the first two testers 400 “rubles” and the third 500 “rubles”. In terms of how much to pay here, it is up to either the project manager or the company's internal tester responsible for external testers.

What gives us the use of external

If you do not have a budget for maintaining a crowd of testers in the state, this allows you to handle many tasks using one or two internal testers. This saves time and nerves of programmers, who will be barred from communicating with a crowd of people, each of which will inform him about bugs, everything will be done by one person who actually acts as an intermediary between developers and users. It makes it possible to analyze tasks from the point of view of the average user, and to understand what they, the users, need.

Cons of using external testers

- It is difficult to control the execution of tasks
- Responsibility for errors in public lies on the internal tester