T he same thing holds true in designing Web sites. A site can make perfect sense to those intimately involved in its construction, but it may baffle the typical user. So no site should be launched on an unsuspecting public without first beta testing it. And even the most thoroughly tested sites need to be retested after any substantial changes. As Jakob Nielsen noted in an interview with Contentious online magazine, The writer and editor have to predict what users may want to do, and support those tasks.
S ites that publish dynamic content or have complex navigational schemes require true beta testing.
Such testing is a multi-phase operation that includes writing test plans and carefully monitoring and coordinating bug reports. W hichever form your testing takes, this phase is critical to ensure that all the hard work you put into your site isn't tainted by technical difficulties. As good as a site may be, bugs can damage reader credibility just as readily as a typo in 96-point type across the front page of newspaper.