Also, humans are weird, so A/B testing, if taken to its logical conclusion, will produce surreal results. What makes a human buy something is really not that we

Also, humans are weird, so A/B testing, if taken to its logical conclusion, will produce surreal results. What makes a human buy something is really not that well understood, IMO. For instance, I was in charge of design for a mortgage lender's web site. I begged my manager to let me try (for lulz) an A/B test replacing the photo of the woman call centre operator next to the quote form with a photo of a Labrador retriever wearing a headset (you knew he was a professional because he also wore glasses and a necktie). The dog form consistently outperformed the woman by 19% but we had to roll it back after a couple of weeks because.. well.. dog.