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You’re partly right - a scientific endeavor to figure out the color of a button would be over-the-top, because it’s not that important. But to the article’s po

by jbob2000 8y ago

You’re partly right - a scientific endeavor to figure out the color of a button would be over-the-top, because it’s not that important. But to the article’s point, if you’re running banking software or something, your users don’t give a shit what the button colours are; they will slog through whatever you develop because they need to get stuff done. A/B tests are a small tool that sometimes get taken too far or used in the wrong context.

ddebernardy 8y ago
> a scientific endeavor to figure out the color of a button would be over-the-top, because it’s not that important. Not saying A/B testing shades of blue like Google reportedly does is anything useful, but picking a different button color altogether reportedly can make a difference. Even if it's 1% more sign-ups each month, that can translate to a few more potential clients per month - and more word of mouth. If you think that is too trivial a difference to matter, think about what 1% more interest would mean over your career as you compound interest for your retirement.
lostcolony 8y ago
'Taken too far or used in the wrong context' - sure. In the language of this article, banking app users are mostly all 'high intent'. But that doesn't mean you can't evaluate criteria other than users who completed the workflow to determine what is a design improvement. You can still measure time to completion, how long it took the user from entering the workflow to completing a given task as a measure, and play with the design. Optimize the things users are doing the most, that sort of thing. A/B testing can help you there. It's not the be all end all; you still need sound UX design to figure out what designs to test out, but it can give you measurable data as to what works, rather than just UX gut feeling, or purely lab based results which don't reflect reality.

ddebernardy 8y ago

> a scientific endeavor to figure out the color of a button would be over-the-top, because it’s not that important. Not saying A/B testing shades of blue like Google reportedly does is anything useful, but picking a different button color altogether reportedly can make a difference. Even if it's 1% more sign-ups each month, that can translate to a few more potential clients per month - and more word of mouth. If you think that is too trivial a difference to matter, think about what 1% more interest would mean over your career as you compound interest for your retirement.

lostcolony 8y ago

'Taken too far or used in the wrong context' - sure. In the language of this article, banking app users are mostly all 'high intent'. But that doesn't mean you can't evaluate criteria other than users who completed the workflow to determine what is a design improvement. You can still measure time to completion, how long it took the user from entering the workflow to completing a given task as a measure, and play with the design. Optimize the things users are doing the most, that sort of thing. A/B testing can help you there. It's not the be all end all; you still need sound UX design to figure out what designs to test out, but it can give you measurable data as to what works, rather than just UX gut feeling, or purely lab based results which don't reflect reality.