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Join me on a journey exploring the ups and downs of being a creator. I make things across many mediums including apps, games, and podcasts. Along the way, I take the side roads to motivation and inspiration. Navigating the winding paths that try to stop us from achieving our dreams and goals.
What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the PW Podcast. I'm your host as always, Peter Witham. You can find me and this podcast at peterwitham.com. This one, we're gonna talk about testing, and we're gonna talk about testing apps and testing games and just testing software in general.
Peter:Now as developers, it is important, of course, that we get folks other than ourselves to test everything because we know everything there is to know about a game or an application. And therefore, we know all the things to click. We know all the things not to click, all the things to do, and so on. And that makes us the worst possible testers. Now, that said, there is a common thread that a lot of the time folks will ask friends, family, those kind of people to test for us.
Peter:Like, hey, can you try this and test it? Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but I don't think that's the best approach. And I'll explain why. It's that thing of friends and family. They're not going to tell you something's truly dreadful unless you happen to have some friends or something like that will just really give you those honest answers, which is fantastic if they do, right?
Peter:Because if it really sucks, you want someone to tell you it sucks and there's problems, right? But unfortunately, they don't want to upset you. They don't want to offend you. So they may make suggestions on changes or find issues. But it's unlikely that they're going to tell you this thing really sucks, right?
Peter:Along with that, I think something that makes them you know, unreliable testers, and I don't mean to offend anybody, is a lot of the time you ask folks to test something, and they're like, yeah, we'll do this. And then they never get around to it, or they forget, or they're busy with their own thing. But the result is, the end of the day, you don't get the testing that you need. And that's why I think if at all possible, you put it out there in some public space where you get folks who are gonna potentially want to use this app or play this style of game and have them test for you. Now this can be the most painful way, of course, because number one, it requires you to put something out in the world that may not be finished.
Peter:And number two, the feedback could really convince you that, you know what, I shouldn't have bothered. But that's a good thing. Because if it comes back that everybody hates it or it's just nobody's interested, nobody wants to test it, whatever it may be, that's a good sign that maybe you should go away, put it back, and think about it again. Again, that's feedback right there. It's a kind of that thing of lack of feedback is feedback, right?
Peter:But the point is the best feedback you're going to get will be from folks who are potential users, players, purchasers, whatever it may be. Now that's tricky, and that's hard to do because just putting something out in the world doesn't mean folks are going to find it and they're going to want to test it for you. And trust me on this, folks. I have been putting stuff out for years. And the amount of people that come back will actually test things for me, you can probably count on one hand for each app or game.
Peter:And that's the way it is. Now, that said, of course, there are places out there where you can get professional testers. And if you've got the money, you can pay them to test your apps and give you really good quality feedback. And that's an option. Now, the other option is that you find communities that are related to whatever it is that you're making.
Peter:So I'll give you a couple of examples. Let's say that you're making an application that is something to do with finance, right? Let's just say tracking your finances, leave it at that. Then you should try and find a community where they talk about financing and how to improve your finances, how to track them. That is your target audience for testing right there.
Peter:Because two things. Number one, you're going to get feedback from people who are actually going to use this thing and are interested in this topic. Number two, they will suggest ways to make the application better or the service better. And you're also getting potential purchasers, users, clients, whatever you want to call it. And it also puts some marketing out there in the world that, again, it's all focused around folks who are actually interested in this thing.
Peter:Now the other way is that maybe you're making a game and, I don't know, pick a style, right? I love idle games. So I tend to make idle games. Now, everybody. That's a select group of people, just like every kind of game.
Peter:Right? And it's the same thing. If you don't find the right people to test that style of game, who are going to play it for more than five minutes, who are going to really get into it and give you good feedback on the good things, the bad things, and potentially, they may even become spokespeople for you, right, if they like it that much. Then you need to find that community. So go somewhere where there is a lot of people that play that style of game.
Peter:Now a good place and one that I put my stuff up on is itch.io. I'll put a link in the show notes to my page on there. But it's itch.io. They have all sorts of different styles of games, everything you can think of. And that is perfect because that means there's going to be a community of people out there interested, in this case, idle games, progressive games, things like that.
Peter:And that greatly increases your chance of getting good feedback, which, again, is what this is all about, right? And also consistent feedback. Again, you don't want people to play it for five minutes and then go away, right? You want people that are going to play it for a while, and then they're going to give you feedback. And you're going to take that feedback and then make a new version of the app or a new version of the game.
Peter:And then you're going to put it out there. And you're going to go back to those same people and say, hey, would you mind trying it again? I've taken on board what you told me. See what you think. Because that's important.
Peter:If you have someone who comes along and says, I just don't think that there should be a drop down menu to select a payment type. I should be able to type it in freehand, you know, text field. Okay. You make that change. You need those same people to come back and test it again.
Peter:Because otherwise, you're making a change that maybe nobody else wants. Right? And maybe just that one person said, this is the good idea. This is what I want. Now, you should never do something to cater to just one person unless they are the client.
Peter:Other than that, you need to weigh up the feedback that you get and say to yourself, Okay, is this valid? Does this feel like the right thing? Are a majority of people agreeing that this is what it should be? And does it fit the vision of whatever your app or game or whatever may be? That's important as well, right?
Peter:There's nothing wrong with pivoting. But if you've got an idea, you should stick with that idea and ask yourself, does the feedback I'm getting support the narrative of what I'm trying to build? If you're happy to completely pivot because people have suggested something completely different and 90% of the people have said this should be the thing, hey, that's your choice. You're free to do that, right? But it is important that you get the feedback from folks more than once.
Peter:Now again, the other thing here is if you don't get feedback from anybody, you've got to think about that. Maybe you didn't push it to the right places. Maybe you didn't get the attention of the right people. You've to remember that just like everything, the amount of people that you're going to get that see something and respond to it is going to be very small, right? It's that advertising thing.
Peter:When you pay for advertising on sites, right, you may pay for 1,000 impressions. You're not going to get 1,000 people come back. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get 10. Maybe you'll get one. If you're incredibly lucky, maybe you'll get 100.
Peter:But you're never going to get 1,000. So the more folks you can get to provide you this feedback and this testing to find issues, especially before you do the initial release, is crucial. So that's what I want you to think about, right? And this is very close to home for me because, again, I've never found a great way to get people to test things. But as I mentioned at the beginning, friends and family, they want the best for you, but they're not the most reliable testers, Okay?
Peter:And we just got to be honest about that. Again, don't mean offense to anybody out there. It's just a case of they've got their own thing going on. Unless you're making something that they absolutely need, the chances are that they might look at it for a few minutes and then never give you any feedback or maybe say, oh, that's interesting. That's great.
Peter:And then that's it, which honestly doesn't really help you much other than make you feel good. And yeah, you want to feel good, but you need something that you can take an action on. And that's what you're really looking for when you put stuff out there in the world to get this feedback from testing. Love to hear your thoughts on this. Again, I'm no expert on this, but I know what doesn't work.
Peter:I've had that plenty of times. That's it, folks. Reach out to me, peterwitham dot com, and I'll speak to in the next episode.