A Product Manager’s Guide to Roku Beta Testing Programs.

You have been sprinting for weeks and your long-awaited ‘go-live’ date is just around the corner. By now your Roku remote feels like an extension of your hand and as you look around, everything seems to have the slightest tint of Roku purple. Rest assured, you are not stuck deep within a fever dream. You are simply stamping the path that will allow you to share your Roku Channel with the world!

While you may be tempted to shift that focus away from your TV and toward your product burndown chart, the most successful product managers will be focusing on something else —their beta testing feedback.

Well executed beta testing programs can do wonders for your product. A pre-launch program can derisk your initial release, provide you with invaluable usability insights, and spark both anticipation and excitement with stakeholders and users alike. This article highlights 5 items every product manager should consider as they look to craft a beta testing program for their Roku Channel.

5 Steps to Successful Beta Testing Programs

1. 🔍 Identify your test group. There are two main questions you must ask yourself: Who should we invite and how many individuals should we include? The ideal program size varies based on the scope and complexity of your product. The more expansive your feature set, the more feedback you should be seeking. Keeping in mind that only a subset of individuals will truly engage, aim high. In addition to setting a high invitation target, craft your user list with intention and care. Where possible, real users outside of your organization should be involved. These may be trusted partners, active community members, or a selection of power users that you trust. If granting access to external parties is too risky, consider team members from within your organization. This approach can limit your exposure while also ensuring you receive feedback from those with fresh eyes. The best feedback will come from your highly engaged users so do your best to honor and allow them to help shape your product.
2. 🔬Complete your testing first! It goes without saying that your development process should already incorporate rigorous testing . While beta programs are intended to get less polished software to users quickly, these users are not unpaid Quality Analysts. Despite your best efforts, there is no guarantee that these releases will be kept private. You should feel confident that your product or feature is nearly 90% complete before releasing it into your program. Despite the beta label, you should be able to proudly stand by the product you are shipping since the largest bugs have already been identified by you!
3. 🎓 Plan to transition. It is important to acknowledge the inherent differences between a beta product and a live Roku Channel. Naturally, beta programs have a shorter lifecycle. A day will come in which you will need to encourage users to convert from your beta offering to your polished and certified channel. While this can be handled with well-crafted external communication, it should always be accompanied by a programmatic solution. Consider including a forced version upgrade mechanism that can be enabled remotely to encourage users to migrate to your publicly available channel. This can even include a deep link to smooth out the migration! Sunsetting your beta channel can be a delightful user experience if given the careful consideration it deserves.
4. 📨 Establish a line of communication. The additional efforts and coordination required to run a successful program are only useful if you can establish a dialog with your users. Invitations to testing programs should be accompanied by well-detailed instructions on how to access the product as well as how users might be able to communicate with your team. Along with this access, users should be made aware of any product limitations that might not be immediately obvious. Be sure to include clearly articulated feature lists as well as any known issues that your team is already aware of. Next, encourage users to explore certain areas of your product or highlight paths in which they should travel. This will help ensure that you receive feedback in all the areas you desire. Lastly and most importantly, be accessible. Users are doing you a service. Not only should they be able to quickly and easily provide you with their thoughts and feedback, but you should be following up with thoughtful responses in a timely manner as well.
5. 🚀 Distribute early. Distribution through the Roku Channel Store requires that all Roku-defined certification criteria be met. While these can be daunting tasks, it does not mean that all of these requirements need to be fulfilled prior to beta testing. Roku offers a non-certified channel type that can be used to privately distribute channels without requiring review. Leveraging this option means that your team can be hard at work building out support for things like Roku required deep links, while your beta users can be testing the meat and potatoes of your product. (It is important to note, non-certified channels can not be promoted for certification. A new certifiable channel must be created prior to publishing your final work. This is where Step 3 becomes even more important!)

While beta testing may require additional preparation and attention, executing well on this initiative will provide your team with validation and clarity as you derisk your launch. Keep these steps in mind as you prepare to publish your next Roku Channel. Best of luck!

• Jack Cunningham

  Director, Product Management

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