Archive for Web Development
I was recently reading Tim Peter’s blog where he discussed not being afraid of A/B testing and it got me thinking about why not to A/B test with a website.
The only case I can come up with where one wouldn’t want to A/B test is really when it just becomes too cost or time-prohibitive to do so or when there are more important business updates (features, fixes or enhancements) that resources should handle first. In addition, you have sites that just might be for personal use that just aren’t worth the time or effort.
In the cases where those conditions are not true, what happens far too often with sites is that whoever makes the business decisions on the look or text believes they have the best solution. They aren’t necessarily wrong, but their personal preference or belief isn’t necessarily going to maximize their site – whatever maximizing might be for them (purchases, newsletter sign-ups, etc).
Often, what an A/B test will show you is that what you or someone else thought was best was truly not. That’s the real goal: finding what’s best, and that’s what A/B tests do. And who doesn’t want to be the best?
February 25, 2011
Today, after some time of procrastination and back and forth and such, my sister and I launched her new website. It’s an update after five years, and she’s happy to turn this new leaf. All her own clean design, so I’m a big fan.
It was a standard WordPress site, with some custom jQuery built in and a few plug-ins, but it got me thinking about making sites and how fluid they are.
Most discussions about web development with people outside of the web development world eventually makes it to the subject of “getting it right.” I’m quite the stickler about a fair amount of stuff, but the same time, I can easily let things go when I feel they aren’t the most important at the time. One of the things that Millie understood immediately was that she will be able to constantly update, improve and change her site. There is no “done.”
When someone writes a newspaper article, a book or a song, they’re done. Sure, there can be multiple editions, rewrites, or versions. Even after the first time they release, they can put out another version or correction of some kind. That new version, remix or correction is not what people will remember. It’s that first version that sticks with people.
However, with websites, people remember the url. They’ll go back to that url, and if there are updates, then that’s totally fine, even expected in many cases. Websites are always updated, there are always new versions. It makes websites different from many other media, but then again, that’s nothing new – websites have and will always be different from other media.
December 23, 2010
There’s a new site that’s been being sent around for a few days now, Launchlist. There is one main issue with it: instead of focusing on why not to launch a new site, you should focus on why to launch a new site.
It’s far too easy to get bogged down in the details of what else do I need to launch a new site. Granted, when you have a major site already in production, that is a different scenario and you’re going to want to go through a full set of testing. However, when it’s something new, it’s easy to get distracted by things that ultimately will not matter.
The 28 items that Launchlist recommends are great items to accomplish with a site, and really should be part of every site. But, when it comes down to it, many things can be eventual goals. Like support for Opera and larger resolution testing. Sure, those things should be on the to-do list, and yes, I am a big fan of Opera, but the fact is it’s not a high percentage of users who will be affected, so is it really worth delaying a launch because of that?
In the day and age of modern web development, it’s very easy to put out new releases when you need to update. The stringent testing should always be there, but in an agile environment, it’s easy to update something on the fly and roll out a new version for all users, so why give someone a reason to not launch?
June 28, 2010
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