The Psychology Behind Two A/B Testing Choices
By Owen Fay . Posted on February 11, 2022

When choosing between multiple alternatives, people usually focus their attention on the two most promising options. The quicker we do that, the faster we make the decision. – University of Basel – Nature Human Behavior

When asked a simple question like “How do you feel?”, most people often hesitate for a long time and try to put the answer on some scale between 1 and 10.

An alternative/better approach would be: “Are you feeling better today than yesterday?” Yes / No

If there is one thing that humans are great at doing, it’s making comparative judgments between TWO options.

Even when presented with multiple options, most humans quickly narrow down the choices to TWO options. This has been well established in modern research.

When choosing between multiple alternatives, people usually focus their attention on the two most promising options. The quicker we do that, the faster we make the decision – University of Basel – Nature Human Behavior

When you have a design (say a logo or website), if you ask someone “Hey, what do you think about this design?”, you will probably get 10 different answers.

The better approach would be to have TWO designs (A and B) and then ask people “Which one do you prefer?

Not only will you get great judgments, but now you can easily quantify the answers and make the decision – based on who was the “winner”

It is due to this psychology that all of our usability and concept tests are designed as quick A/B tests. Not only do you get decisive human judgments, but you also get concise reasoning behind each choice.

Every one of our panel users has to explain the reasoning behind their choice. This is the strongest form of customer feedback you can expect where you are getting inside the minds of the person answering your question.

Have you tried usability A/B testing? If not, what is holding you back? Sign up for Poll the People and start growing your business!

 

Owen Fay

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