About the book
For years companies have tried to develop THE best website, even shamelessly copying from the so called "best of breed". The reality is although technology can be copied, although business processes can be inspired from best practices, humans can't be that easily copied. If one of the distinctive element of any company is its workforce, the decisive factor of success is understanding the client. And the only way to know if your website works for your clients is to test, measure and optimize your Persuasion Architecture.A continuous improvement process isn't complete until we reach 100% success... in the meantime, read this book, learn a whole lot about testing, see what others are doing, and get plentiful of ideas to get going!
Although the book titles states "Google Website Optimizer", the book is really an excellent introduction to the concept of A/B and multivariate testing for any solution.
A funny situation!
For years companies have tried to develop THE best website, even shamelessly copying from the so called "best of breed".When I read Bryan's latest blog post, "Always be testing unleashed" I clicked through to view the two versions of his book cover (since yes, he is doing A/B testing on that too!).
Shock!
I though my browser had a problem! Compare the two websites below. The first one is http://WebAnalyticsSolutionProfiler.com, the site I created for my tool almost a year ago, wihle the second is the newly launched site by Bryan http://www.testingtoolbox.com/:
| Site A: WASP | Site B: Testingtoolbox.com |
|---|---|
 |  |
| http://WebAnalyticsSolutionProfiler.com | http://www.testingtoolbox.com |
Now... I feal a bit embarrassed and pleased at the same time... I've known Bryan for a while and I'm sure he wouldn't intentionally pick a site design so close to something that already exists in such a close industry. With Bryan's and FutureNow experience, I guess they took this design because they saw there was a good potential for persuasion architecture optimization. On the other hand, I wouldn't want people visiting either of the site thinking we stealed design from each other. It's simply that we both took inspiration from Template World!
A/B analysis of both sites
So now, you can visit both sites and comment about how to improve both sites! Some details like the following:- Buttons: The 3 big boxes on my site are clickable, while TestingTool click must be done on the small arrow within the box.
- Tabs: My site uses tabs at the top navigation as a reminder of the site section you're in. Bryan's site doesn't have any visual clue on where you are.
- Logo: By convension, the top-left logo is supposed to bring you home (safeharbor). Bryan's site will get you out of the book's site to FutureNow main site.
- White space: Notice the amount of white space between the top nav and the 3 big buttons. I reduced it on my site because I wanted to bring most content above the fold.
- Call to action: On my site, the green "Add to Firefox" is my conversion goal, we would presume for a book it would be something like "Buy the book now", but it's not there.
Named one of the most influential industry contributors by the Digital Analytics Association. With over twenty years’ experience empowering organizations to analyze and optimize their online channels, Stéphane has cemented his position as a leading voice for online analytics and optimization.
4 comments:
Stephane,
I guess great minds think alike. John Q is the one who picked the template for the site.
I know we discussed this privately but let me share with everyone that the sites obviously have different objectives and strategies. Our primary goal for the testingtoolbox website is as support for someone who already purchased the book and would like to vote on the cover and get additional resources. We aren't planning to use the url for promotional purposes.
So the tactics play off the strategy. The main action is vote for the cover. Also the boxes are clickable just not the text on the 3 boxes. We also chose to remove the tabs because we had so many links at the top. You get the idea...
Thank you again for the kind words about the book.
Hi Stéphane,
An interesting post, also by the peculiar coincidence. However I have a question. If as you say, Brian's book is "an excellent introduction to the concept of A/B and multivariate test", which will be a more advanced and comprehensive reference on A/B testing?
Thanks!
Jose
Excellent point! To my knowledge, Bryan's book is the only one that talks exclusively about A/B & multivariate testing and the only one on Google WebSite Optimizer. Other books might cover this topic but certainly not to the extent Bryan does!
If it is the only book, maybe it is worth to take a look. However this is an opportunity for any expert in the field to come up with book, or even a blog, that goes beyond the basics of A/B & multivariate testing. It can even focus on more case studies and even a comparison of the different tools available.
Cheers,
Jose
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