What Motivates You? The Results Are In!
Being a beta tester is a big responsibility. When you volunteer your time and energy to helping shape a product, the impact that you have on that product is huge. However, devoting the necessary time and detail involved with being a good beta tester can be no easy task. Many product managers simply don’t understand why people are so eager to become testers in the first place, so it’s no surprise that so many companies come to us asking how we created such an amazing, motivated community of testers.
To help answer this question for them, we decided to ask you: our Betabound community. After all, who better to explain why testers do what they do, than the testers themselves? We posted a survey on Betabound (it’s still available if you’d like to contribute) and over 5,000 of you participated. Here’s what we found:
Betabound Survey: What is your primary reason for participating in our beta program?
These numbers are inspiring. What you told us is that many of you (43%) are motivated to beta test primarily to improve the products you know and love (or maybe hate). You want to make these products better because you use them every day and they make your lives easier. The next three groups (45% collectively) are focused on trying out new products. This may either be because you think they’re neat or you simply want to expand your professional skill set. Either way, improvement of product and lifestyle is still the main focus. Then, there’s about 9% of you that are in it for the free goodies (and we can’t say we blame you, the incentives we give out are usually pretty cool).
But, what these numbers really reveal is the passion that our beta managers see in our testers every day. As you submit bug reports, take part in product discussions, and fill out surveys, we can see the genuine excitement and respect you have for the beta testing process, as well as the products you get to test.
Now, we’d like to hear your thoughts about this data. Is this what you’ve seen from other testers? Are there any other beta testing motivations that we missed? Are there other insights about the community you’d like to see discussed on the blog? Feel free to comment below!