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.
Get Your Whole Team Testing to Design for Impact
Summary
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
"Culture eats strategy for breakfast—integrating cultures is the hardest and most critical part of mergers."
Jorge ArangoMeeting of the Waters: Designing for Successful Inorganic Growth
August 12, 2021
"Being true to our humanity and morality lets us better ourselves and our teammates."
Bria AlexanderTheme 1 Intro
September 23, 2024
"Eventually, I expect AI to help create designs by combining patterns from meta design systems and research, making design more about crafting experiences."
Abby Covert Tomer SharonPanel: Collaboration Tools
November 6, 2017
"A real test of trust happened where I could confidently step away from micromanaging after we shifted online."
Smitha Papolu Nova Wehman-Brown Melissa Schmidt Adam MenterTheme 3 Discussion
January 8, 2024
"We made a taxonomy of streaming participants using food metaphors: snacks, main meal, side dish."
Deanna MitchellDesigning with culture: Unlocking impactful insights for Product and UX
March 12, 2025
"Democratization has already happened; the conversation should focus on the nuanced middle ground."
Aras Bilgen Ari ZelmanowResearch Democratization: A Debate
March 29, 2023
"Designers want a sense of connection with their coworkers."
Kit UngerTheme 1 Intro
June 8, 2022
"Our mentorship program went from seven people spending 56 hours monthly manually matching to two people spending six hours monthly with automation."
Kate SternScaling Learning for the Future
September 9, 2022
"If you want to make one slice bigger you have to make another slice smaller — executives hate the exclusive or concept."
Rich MironovHow Can Product Managers and UXers Help Each Other (and Why are Product Folks so Annoying Sometimes)?
December 6, 2022