Alpha Testing

Alpha Testing is a type of acceptance testing performed by a company's internal employees, but not the development team, in a simulated or controlled test environment. The main goal is to uncover as many bugs and usability issues as possible before the product is released to a wider audience.

Example: A software company develops a new project management application. Before a public beta is launched, the quality assurance team and other non-development employees (like product managers and support staff) conduct Alpha Testing. They use the application in a controlled lab environment to execute all major user workflows, from creating a project to generating reports, to ensure it is stable and all features work as intended.