One of the core things that create a lot of back and forth between the developers and product owners is that the information needed about a test that needs to be developed is simply not there up front. Even though you are well versed on what the hypothesis is and what you want to test, because of the missing information, the development can be stalled. We have seen some tests that are supposed to be delivered in three days’ time, took over a week as some of the key information was missing from the original test brief.

Here are the 5 most important things that the A/B testing developers need to develop and deliver the test in the most efficient way:

1. Variation designs

Obviously! And that includes what changes need to be made, any functionalities that need to be added and / or how the changes are reflected across different devices

2. Metrics

Unless you are going to track the metrics by yourself – specify the primary KPI and all other metrics you want to track. There could be custom metrics that the A/B testing developer need to implement as part of the test development across all variations (including control!)

3. Targeting pages / screens

Where is this going to be live? Homepage? Product Listing Pages? Product Details pages? What is the URL structure? If it is a sitewide test – is it truly a sitewide? What about the checkout funnel (which can be structured differently from the rest of the site)?

4. Audiences

Who will be part of this experiment? What are the audience criteria? What about visitors coming from PPC campaigns? Are there any restrictions?

5. Edge cases / Anomalies

If a product is out of stock or on sale, the product details page is displayed differently. How is that going to be reflected for the variation? It is very easy to miss the edge cases – but for the test developer, it is important to ensure that they are covered up front

The rule is simple – the clearer the information is up front, the less time spent on unnecessary back and forth!