The market for connected devices and other technology is more competitive today than it's ever been. Companies know that it's not enough to get their product off the shelves. Lasting success hinges on keeping customers happy, meaning continuous testing and iteration are necessary to ensure products are always performing optimally.

Continuous testing is so widely adopted that you can't call it a "secret." But how you're testing your products after launch, and who you're testing them with, makes a huge difference in what you get out of it.

Getting the most out of post-launch iteration starts with delta testing. We're talking about user testing automation that delivers real-time product insights from real customers in real homes ahead of your upcoming releases. That's delta testing for product iteration.

What is Product Iteration Testing?

This delta testing use case harvests feedback on upcoming product updates from a select community of your customers. Delta testing in this capacity gives you access to all the technology your customers use every day, surfacing issues that you can't catch in a lab before your product hits your larger audience.

Delta testing for product release lets you...

• Secure Feedback and Stay on Track with Project Schedules. Your project teams move fast. Your feedback collection should too. Delta testing processes tap customer insights without slowing you down, ensuring you've always got user feedback on your latest builds.
• Use Data to Drive New Features. This use case ensures your product and roadmap decisions are reinforced with customer feedback. Delta testing automatically prioritizes customer insights based on severity, popularity, and impact.
• Keep a Finger on the Pulse of Market Sentiment. A dogpile of star ratings and positive comments are what separate good products from great ones. With delta testing to prioritize what matters most to your market, you'll outperform competitors and drive revenue to new heights.

How Delta Extends the Reach of QA

Quality assurance is absolutely critical for ironing out bugs and ensuring your product works as it was designed to. But even the most well-resourced labs can't replicate the nuance of your audience's real homes, real products, and real-world use cases.

Delta testing is the only efficient way to validate product quality across that wide spectrum of scenarios, demographics, and technographic ecosystems. It goes beyond quality and stability to evaluate customer satisfaction and product maturity. Where QA focuses on test cases, delta testing focuses on experiences. This includes adoption through natural use, which allows testers to discover features outside of a quality-focused test plan and improve usage beyond bugs.

By bringing in new use cases and contextualizing bugs with qualitative data, delta testing doesn't replace but complements QA. And unlike legacy practices like beta or field testing, it's aligned with the continuous, iterative nature of quality assurance and other modern development processes.

Bonus: Turning Customers Into Evangelists

In addition to the enormous benefits we've covered about delta testing for product iteration, there's one more: the effect of co-creation on your customers' relationship to your product.

Customers who interface regularly with your development team develop a vested interest in your product. And that's because they're seeing the positive impact of their feedback in real-time. By inviting your current customers to participate in the continued development of a product they know and love, they'll use their influence with their friends, family, and social connections to promote it at every opportunity. Boom — you've got yourself a product evangelist. Pretty neat, huh?

Make Every Release Perfect

There's no such thing as a "perfect" product, but Centercode delta testing empowers you to maintain your lead and grow opportunities with your customers by bringing them into product development. Partnering with your customers through Centerocode guarantees each release is polished, satisfying even your toughest customers.

Start co-creating solutions that ensure your users will continue to need and enjoy your product in ever-changing ecosystems. We'll show you the way forward.