Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Summary
Experimentation can be intimidating to non-data science folk. But Erin wants to get everyone excited about A/B testing. In this talk, Erin shares the Conversion Design process. It centers A/B testing as a way to gather high-quality evidence to make highly informed decisions to improve your digital product. She also introduces the Good Experimental Design toolkit. These easy-to-follow templates usher teams through the logic needed to design trustworthy experiments that you can learn from.
Key Insights
-
•
Conversion design combines design, science, and business to intentionally create measurable improvements, not just arbitrary changes.
-
•
Ronald Fisher’s 1919 work exposed how poor experimental design led to decades of unreliable scientific data.
-
•
Conversion originates from the Latin word meaning to transform or change, which is broader than just sales or profit.
-
•
Traditional linear product development processes miss the complex, iterative nature of real-world systems.
-
•
Systems thinking offers a more accurate way to understand and manage design experiments within interconnected environments.
-
•
A rigorous conversion design process includes seven phases: understand, hypothesize, prioritize, create, test, analyze, and decide.
-
•
Experiments grounded in well-documented hypotheses based on research have higher success rates than guesses.
-
•
Randomized 50/50 AB testing is the gold standard for isolating the true effect of design changes by evenly distributing confounds.
-
•
Experimentation buckets—product foundations, content/motivation, accessibility/usability, and bug fixes—help prioritize work effectively.
-
•
Ethical considerations and guardrail metrics are crucial to ensure changes benefit all stakeholders sustainably and without manipulation.
Notable Quotes
"Conversion means change, not just sales or profit."
"Design is the rendering of intent — bringing ideas into form that solve the problem."
"Decades worth of agricultural experimental data was garbage because of poor experimental design."
"Most product teams stay on the bottom rungs of evidence, relying on opinions or observational data instead of randomized trials."
"You can never purely test an idea, only the implementation of the idea."
"Randomization is magic — it evenly distributes confounds so the observed effect is caused by your change."
"Not all changes create value; some do nothing or even make things worse."
"You have to think critically about how a change impacts all stakeholders, not just the main business metric."
"Ethics evolve faster than laws; just because something is legal doesn’t make it ethical."
"If an experiment I design made the front page news tomorrow, how would I feel about it?"
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Rollout is more successful when management can clearly answer what's in it for the researcher and be honest about trade-offs."
Jon Temple Kalee Dankner Bruce Falk Lauren GalanterPanel: Stacks, Security, and Stakeholders: The Hidden Work of UXR Tool Procurement
March 12, 2026
"Users don’t just trust the advisor’s opinion; they vet it through their community networks."
Daniel GloydDesigning Warmth
February 26, 2025
"Advanced quantitative methods can amplify our work in ways we didn’t expect, and also show us how to get started."
Megan BlockerTheme 2 Intro
March 12, 2025
"Design at scale is really humanism at scale."
Lada GorlenkoTheme 3: Introduction
June 10, 2021
"Conversation is 21st century design; it's how we share values, align intentions, and coordinate action."
Paul Pangaro, PhDSystems Disciplines: Table Stakes for 21st Century Organizations
June 6, 2023
"Should service designers have a role in the long-term viability of the services they develop? Our answer is yes."
Laura Smith Tom GaylerEmbedding Service Design and Agile Practice within UK Planning Teams to Create Services that Last
December 3, 2024
"Your repository design needs to be guided by people and process, and internal research should be your first step."
Ben Davies Matt Duignan Andrew Michael Dr. Emily DiLeoExpert Panel: The Principles of Research Repository Design
March 11, 2022
"Hiring people who are relentlessly seeking improvement will grow your team and your work."
Rachel Radway Katie Bingham Joe WiertelThe Many Paths Of Design Operations
September 8, 2022
"AI can standardize work, but it's on the designer’s court now to bring humanity, emotion, and originality to the work."
Angelos ArnisNavigating the Rapid Shifts in Tech's Turbulent Terrain
October 2, 2023
