10 Killer Steps to Creating A/B Tests that Work

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10 Killer Steps to Creating A/B Tests that Work

Open up the page that you want to improve then perform the following:

Start with the End in Mind

1) Start with the end in mind

Look at the page you are planning to test. Ask yourself what is the purpose of this page?

The purpose is always money.

Make sure that any future recommendations you make achieve this!

Usability v Persuasion

2) Usability or Persuasion?

If you could fix either the

Usability (how the page works, buttons, navigation etc)

Persuasion (how clear/ convincing the message the site gives is)

which would it be? Pick one to focus on.

3) What does the business/ product/ service do?

Write a short concise statement about what the business/ service/ product does. Cross reference this with what the page actually says. It is rare that the page says what the business/ product/ service actually does! You will be working to make sure it does.

Remove everything that isn't elephant

4) Remove everything that isn’t elephant.
Ask a sculpture how they sculpted an elephant and they will tell you that all they did was take away everything that wasn’t elephant.

Take a screenshot of the page and using paint (or something more fancy if you like) take away everything on the page that does not help the page achieve its goal.

Be brutal and take everything you can off the page. Interesting huh…

Hypothesize

5) Ask… How do people buy the products/services that the site offers?

Do people choose by price, by colour, by size, by quality, by model, by purpose etc etc etc?

6) Use research findings

Hopefully you will have read the Top 25 Killer Tools for Shooting HiPPOs blog and you will now have lots of really great information about your customers.

7) Hypothesize

What do you want to learn from the test? Don’t just throw muck at the wall! Make sure that every test variation you create responds to a hypothesis.

Stand back

Sketch out your Designs

Make it easy for everyone to understand what it is you will be testing by sketching your concepts.

9) Stand Back

Make sure your variations are different. If you can’t tell the difference from 5 metres away the variations are too similar

It looks easy when it's done well

10) It looks easy when it is done well

The best form of flattery is if no one complains!

The internet needs you! Help protect it from narrow minded HIPPO’s that are hell bent on making websites more complicated than they need to be! Join me in the crusade to Shoot the HIPPO! If you found this useful please share this with everyone that you can and follow @tombowdenCRO on twitter.