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> And without A/B testing, every product you use would be worse. The primary goal of A/B testing is to see what's more profitable. If that happens to result i

by r00fus 4y ago

> And without A/B testing, every product you use would be worse. The primary goal of A/B testing is to see what's more profitable. If that happens to result in better UI that's a side effect. In fact, it could result in less usability (relevant to this conversation, it probably resulted in the frustrating "algorithm-based" timeline at FB/Twitter/etc).

londons_explore 4y ago
The hexagonal wheel probably wasn't very profitable either.
- tomrod 4y ago
  Certainly, because it probably never existed as a function for wheel. Do you have any evidence that the "well duh" criteria wasn't used, and hex wheels show up in the archeological record?
- mzd348 4y ago
  But it comes in handy in the alternate universe where pi=3.
  - eecc 4y ago
    Can you elaborate?
    - mzd348 4y ago
      My thinking is that in this alternate universe where pi=3, circles (with diameter 2 * pi * r) will look like hexagons (which have diameter 2 * 3 * r), so wheels would have to be hexagonal.
milosmns 4y ago
> > The primary goal of A/B testing is to see what's more profitable. Well, I think I'll provide a disagreeing opinion. :) I assume this opinion probably comes from your past experiences, and I believe it is true in many cases. Since I'm not American and have never worked in an American corporate environment, I can't say what is true over there... but my experience in EU and Canada with A/A/B, A/B/C and typical A/B testing (as well as building such testing tools for others) was not like that. For example, when building tutorials for users, profitability is far from being the primary objective. Same goes for building documentation, programming languages, open-source software, internal tooling and other such things. Of course, I get that in the end, profitability is the primary goal of the company (with some exceptions). But I maintain that not all A/B tests have profitability as their primary goal, which makes the previous statement an incorrect generalization IMO.
SoftTalker 4y ago
At least in some cases. A/B testing lead to the development of effective "dark patterns" in UI that trick users into doing things they don't want or don't understand, and then making it difficult to undo.

by r00fus 4y ago

londons_explore 4y ago

The hexagonal wheel probably wasn't very profitable either.

tomrod 4y ago
Certainly, because it probably never existed as a function for wheel. Do you have any evidence that the "well duh" criteria wasn't used, and hex wheels show up in the archeological record?
mzd348 4y ago
But it comes in handy in the alternate universe where pi=3.
- eecc 4y ago
  Can you elaborate?
  - mzd348 4y ago
    My thinking is that in this alternate universe where pi=3, circles (with diameter 2 * pi * r) will look like hexagons (which have diameter 2 * 3 * r), so wheels would have to be hexagonal.

milosmns 4y ago

> > The primary goal of A/B testing is to see what's more profitable. Well, I think I'll provide a disagreeing opinion. :) I assume this opinion probably comes from your past experiences, and I believe it is true in many cases. Since I'm not American and have never worked in an American corporate environment, I can't say what is true over there... but my experience in EU and Canada with A/A/B, A/B/C and typical A/B testing (as well as building such testing tools for others) was not like that. For example, when building tutorials for users, profitability is far from being the primary objective. Same goes for building documentation, programming languages, open-source software, internal tooling and other such things. Of course, I get that in the end, profitability is the primary goal of the company (with some exceptions). But I maintain that not all A/B tests have profitability as their primary goal, which makes the previous statement an incorrect generalization IMO.

SoftTalker 4y ago

At least in some cases. A/B testing lead to the development of effective "dark patterns" in UI that trick users into doing things they don't want or don't understand, and then making it difficult to undo.