Early in the 18th century, an English poet wrote advice on how to tactfully correct someone. It still holds up today.
Men should be taught
As if you taught them not
With things unknown
Proposed as things forgot— Alexander Pope
I was reminded of this wisdom when I was renting a film on YouTube. It was brilliantly optimized to suggest something, as if I had forgotten, to start the rental period.
Don’t judge me harshly on my film choice, shown on the image below. This terrible action comedy from 2020 was an “assignment” as a loyal listener to the long-running podcast How Did This Get Made?, with improvisational actors Paul Scheer, Jason Mantzoukas and June Diane Raphael, most recently of Elle fame (she plays the mom). They roast bad movies.
I imagine that there were many A/B/n tests behind this final user experience, with the goal for optimization being what has to be the most costly part of renting steaming films: How do we reduce the number of complaints from users who don’t remember agreeing to our rental duration? I say there was much testing involved, because the solution is so elegant!
Netflix Sign-up Buttons
Another test from the world of streaming media is one I’ve included in an A/B testing and personalization quiz. The quiz helps me illustrate to my audiences why the cognitive biases we all possess necessitate scientific testing.
We cannot guess our way to the best user experiences!
It’s a cellphone-based quiz where folks are shown two or three options and they have to vote in real time which is the winner, based on randomized controlled experiments in platforms like Adobe’s Customer Journey Optimizer.
My quiz content is from the excellent GoodUI.org (subscription required).
I call the quiz How Good Is Your Gut? Of the hundreds who have participated in the quiz, no one has guessed correctly more than 50% the time, which is a great a way to demonstration how important testing is to optimize outcomes.
Feel free to take your best shot in the embedded quiz, from these three button options tested:
When you take the quiz, you’ll be shown the cumulative results from all of the times I’ve conducted it.
Netflix Test
Netflix ran a test on their sign-up button. Take a guess — which button size improved clicks and sign-ups?
Here’s how everyone answered:
The next time you’re renting media and are impressed with the friction free experience (or not … I’m looking at you, Hulu!), remember there was a ton of behavioral science behind what you’re experiencing!