A/B Testing for Developers at the Ruby Hoedown 2010
Matthew spoke at the Ruby Hoedown in Nashville last Friday. The Hoedown is the South’s regional Ruby conference, and it’s always free to attend. This year it moved to the Hilton Downtown, and as always, the quality of the talks and the smaller crowd made for great hallway conversations.
His talk, A/B Testing for Developers, started with a simple observation. As developers, we use tools like RSpec and Cucumber to verify that our applications work. But how do we verify that a home page layout is easy to use? How do we find the right size for a signup button, or get more visitors to finish a signup form?
Why A/B testing?
A/B testing doesn’t have as much street cred as SEO or user experience design, but it’s just as effective at boosting conversion rates and learning how visitors actually use a web application. The idea is simple: show different versions of a page to different visitors, measure which one performs better, and keep the winner. Instead of guessing, you let real visitors decide.
What we shared
The talk showed how to run A/B tests in Ruby using several popular tools, and shared what we’ve learned from experiments we’ve been running on Teascript, our transcript app for homeschool families.
Matthew previewed the talk at the Raleigh-area Ruby Brigade in August and will give it again for the Central Virginia Ruby Enthusiasts Group (CVREG) in October. Thanks to Jeremy McAnally and everyone who made this year’s Hoedown happen.
Update: Teascript has since been renamed Transcript Maker.