: What's a good method for testing out a new web page for just a small set of users? I'm wanting to test out a few new pages and have just a small set of beta testing users be able to

@Jessie594

Personally, I utilize my database's users table.

# fname lname email beta_access username [...]
1 James Doe jdoe@email.com true jdoe
2 Sally Jones sj@aol.com true sjones
3 Alex Jennings aj123@yahoo.com false ajennings


Using the above example, there are three random users. In your code, you can simply have an if statement to represent beta_access = true. If true, show beta code. If false, do not.

A second method, which I have done on larger sites, is to have a unique ID in the beta_access column. For example:

# [...] beta_access [...]
1 14573
2 57232
3 14573
4 [null]


This way, you can have multiple things you'd like tested at once, but not grant access to each for all users with beta access. Live chat might be represented by 14573, whereas a new contact form UI might be represented by 57232. This is a bit overboard for simple applications, but is quite useful for larger sites.

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@Karen161

I would assume users have to login. Use their id after login to only allow your beta testers on those pages you are testing.
If they don't have to login, you could still make a quick login gateway for your pages that need testing.

psuedo code

If(loginID == "..." or loginID=="..." or loginID=="...")
{
let them in
}
else
{
send them elsewhere
}


or

if(password !="motorcycleMama")
{
send them elswewhere
}


This is how I would do it for your specific example.

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