Preference Test: Peer Review Assignment Setup Part 1

Introduction to the Preference Test Assignment To conclude Module: A/B Testing and Preference Testing, we will be completing a multi-step peer review assignment. To complete this assignment, you will have to follow the directions below, and once you’ve submitted your assignment, you must review three of your peers (following our rubric) to receive credit for the activity. This assignment will comprise 10% of your final grade, so please pay close attention to all of the directions below.

Select an experience that is of interest to you. Examples might include travel sites or apps such as Hipmunk, Kayak, or Orbitz; retail sites such as Tesco, Restoque, or Hanshin; social media sites such as Weibo, Whatsapp, or Facebook or others.

Pick one aspect of an experience that needs improvement.

Possible examples include:

The execution and location of controls on a form. The layout of a page. The inclusion of sort or filter functionality on a search results page. Design a preference test with a control – the current design, or as close to it as you can get in a mockup. Mockups could be screenshots, wireframes, or even easily legible hand drawn and scanned images.

You will need two images: the original webpage or screen and another, the one that you think will address the problem. Your control and experimental designs should be exactly the same except for the one element you are looking to test. This difference could be wording on a button, the location of that button, a different picture or icon, a product description with different information, etc.

Create a survey using Google forms, Qualtrics, Surveymonkey, or some other platform that enables you to ask survey questions and as well, include visual elements. You should ask questions that speak to participants’ perceptions of the experience and that will help you to understand the differences between the two approaches they are being shown. There’s no maximum or minimum number of questions that should be included in the survey, however, be judicious about the number of questions you ask, given that too many questions will lead to people abandoning the test. Example questions may be found on the next page.

You should also ask at least 4 demographic questions to understand who your participants are. You can choose a between subjects or within subjects design.

You should have a total of at least 20 subjects in your study. You can choose how you recruit participants, but you need to defend your choice and describe any biases in your sample. You will be evaluated on whether you came up with a good study design more than whether your experiment was “successful” (i.e., the experimental version outperformed the control). Feel free to invite your fellow learners by putting a link to your own survey in the discussion forum below.