: Illuminate

Dealing with Outliers (Part 1): Ignore Them at Your Peril

Note: This is part one of a two-part series. One of the foundations of testing is repeatability. If you can’t repeat a test and get similar results, you can’t trust the data. And one of...

5 Test Ideas to Learn More About Holiday Shoppers

This year, Black Friday will look more like a month-long shopping journey than a one-day extravaganza. Ecommerce, of course will play a huge role in this holiday shopping season and mobile, more than ever, will...

How Committed to Experimentation Are You, Really?

This post was written by Naoshi Yamauchi the chief performance officer (CPO) at Brooks Bell. Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, Bing, Intuit—all amazing companies committed to experimentation. They are staffed with dozens of smart people and empowered by optimization...

Are Your Customers More Interested in Detail, Experience, or Authority? Testing Can Help You Find Out

What is more compelling to shoppers? A comparison of features across products and brands or the popularity of a brand The ability to trial the product The validation of an expert Depending on your brand...

What Neuroscience Tells Us About ‘Showing the Money’

If consumers followed rational paths to make purchase decisions, it wouldn’t matter whether they saw a price before a product or the product before the price. But consumers—and people in general—don’t behave rationally. Instead, we’re...

Beat the Heat of the Holiday Shopping Season by Testing These Ideas Now

Summer has settled into the “dog days”—the several week stretch in late July and early August characterized by high temperatures. It’s a good time to replenish your sunscreen supply, sit by the pool, and polish...

Reduce the Risk of Adding New Website Features with a Painted Door Test

When it comes to managing a website, it seems there’s always a new tool, technique, or feature that can be applied to improve the performance and experience. Take, for example, live chat widgets. These low-commitment...