First off, finding beta-testers was very easy. Within a couple hours after posting that I was looking for volunteers to do it I had all the beta-testers I'd originally planned on, and I still kept getting volunteers even after posting that I didn't need any more. After extending the group to 8 people, I finally had to start turning people down. Milovana is a very generous community!
The feedback that I got from my beta-testers was more than I've gotten on all of my other teases combined. It helped me see how different people will view the same tease in completely different ways. Having seen one of my teases through very different eyes will help me improve my future teases.
I learned that the tease still had a lot more spelling and other more subtle grammatical errors, (tricky noun-verb agreements, using passive voice, etc.), than I'd thought. I'm happy to have been able to correct them before publishing.
The suggestions I was given for improving the tease were very good. I ended up implementing most of the ideas that were suggested to me and I think the tease is much better because of it.
At one point, I asked a few of the beta-testers their preference on a question with 3 possible answers. This resulted in each possibility having 2 people who prefered it with well-argued reasons why they did.
In the end, I picked the one I think will work best for most people.
Just an interesting fact, 2 seconds after I'd published the tease it showed up as having 45 views. I assume this had to include the private views from the beta-testing process.
There are a few things I'll do differently next time I'm seeking volunteers to beta-test a tease.
1. I'll let people know the themes of the tease ahead of time. As it turned out not all of my beta-testers were into CBT, etc.
2. I'll tell people the expected amount of time needed to go through the tease and how soon I'm aiming to publish it. That way they will know better if their "real life" obligations allow for them to participate.
3. I'll keep my emails better organized. As it turns out, Milovana will allow a PM to be sent to up to 5 recipients at once. However, each time one of them responds to it the response gets added in the "history" part of the message even though they don't see each other's responses. This gets confusing when responding back again, and it might be better to just send PMs to one person at a time.
Finally, I'd like to to thank my beta-testers for all of their help. Your feedback was very valuable and highly appreciated. Thanks guys!
