On-Farm Software Testing for Mobble
Back in July/August 2018, I travelled through the Victorian countryside talking to farmers and key stakeholders in the Ag industry about Mobble. We presented our agtech product at two key events; Sheepvention in Hamilton and the Australian Sheep & Wool Show in Bendigo, the biggest Ag events of their kind in Aus. The objective was to (1) increase the Mobble audience and (2) gather valuable feedback and insight to create the most Practical Farm & Livestock Management Software out there.
Back then the App was in its first round of testing where feedback was critical (mind you it still is today). Feedback determines the direction and the design decisions going forward. We believe in having a strong farmer-to-developer relationship form design, to testing, to release, to iteration.
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Alpha Testing
The Alpha Testing Program in July 2018 was in full swing on the family farm. At this stage, it was already decreasing hassle and supplying the necessary tools to increase productivity. This round of testing aimed to;
- Get all essential Mobble features working for a single operation
- Generate a relationship and feedback loop with farmers and developers
- Update and iterate
- Move onto Beta testing
A strong farmer-to-developer relationship is essential in the testing period, this is why we developed a farmer-to-developer virtual chat room, where the farmer can report problems with the software, ask questions, receive updates and have direct input into the App development. Back then we were at the ‘update and iterate’ phase of the Alpha testing and thinking about rolling into the Beta testing phase.
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Beta Testing
Beta testing was done with 14 chosen farms around Australia. The farms were picked under the following requirements; each operation was slightly different from the next, the operation must be of substantial size and a level of trust with the operators was essential. The aim was to;
- Get Mobble working for a range of different operations
- Generate relationships along with a feedback loop with farmers and developers
- Update and iterate
- Finalise and review
- Move onto Pre-release
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Pre-release
The pre-release was offered to the farmers that signed up to the Mobble wait-list, they got early access to the app along with with a 50% discount.
Thanks for reading, if you haven’t heard of Mobble before click here to find out more. If you want to get a quick background of the Mobble story click here.
Signing off,
Jock (Chief Mobbler)
