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
"The agencies don’t often know what happens to their work after they deliver it unless they hear about it third hand years later."
Melinda BelcherInsider preview of Enterprise Experience 2020
May 28, 2020
"Working at a government institution isn’t linear. Some projects might work out. Some simply won’t."
Sofía Delsordo Kassim VeraPublic Policy for Jalisco's Designers to Make Design Matter
December 8, 2021
"We’re no longer in the business of selling computers and TVs. We are in the happiness business."
Sara Asche Anderson Jamie KaspszakNot Your Ordinary Re-Brand: Design's Path to Driving Customer Obsession at Best Buy
January 8, 2024
"Product folks face challenges translating clear founder or business goals down to motivating operational teams."
Christian Crumlish Aditi Ruiz Johanna Kollmann Catt SmallMorning Insights Panel
December 6, 2022
"Recycling is not always intentional; often insights emerge accidentally when revisiting old data with new perspectives."
Iulia CornigeanuQuantQual Book Club: Small Data
March 8, 2024
"Continuous understanding means both strategic and tactical research with strong customer connections."
Sean McKayWhole Product Thinking: Expanding beyond problem and solution space thinking
March 14, 2024
"I spent the whole car ride home thinking, what just happened? — after singing together at a Shaker conference."
Daniel GloydDesigning Warmth
February 26, 2025
"We have a code of conduct. It’s not just window dressing, it’s the front door to a process with people behind it."
Uday Gajendar Louis RosenfeldDay 2 Welcome
June 5, 2024
"You might be thinking about accessibility backwards; start with mobile first, then extend to desktop."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
September 8, 2022
