What's a good method for testing out a new web page for just a small set of users?
Personally, I utilize my database's users table.
# fname lname email beta_access username [...]
1 James Doe [email protected] true jdoe
2 Sally Jones [email protected] true sjones
3 Alex Jennings [email protected] 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.