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Vertical vs. grid product listings - a surprising AB test

westiseast.co.uk

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Re: Vertical vs. grid product listings - a surprising AB test

#11

Post by stickfigure »

westiseast wrote: post #8
stickfigure wrote: post #7

one of these listing styles performed 15% better than the other in generating clicks on actual products. One of them results in 40% click through, while the other one generates only a quarter That isn't 15% better. That's a 60% increase in click-through rate. That's massive. We had already planned to remove a grid display from our app and replace it with a linear flow, but this seals the deal. Thanks!

why not AB test yours and share the results? My results are accurate and significant (statistically) but I don't know under what circumstances they are transferable. I have a hunch that I get these results because it's a small inventory of products, but with a large inventory, maybe it works differently.

Our app is not live to the public yet. Otherwise we would.

Re: Vertical vs. grid product listings - a surprising AB test

#12

Post by cmurphycode »

marekmroz wrote: post #10
westiseast wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, yes you're right. The sample size was not huge (@500 people viewed each variant) although the result was statistically significant. I just added a note to the post about this. My aim is to repeat the test at a later date to see if the results repeat themselves.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't statistical significance a function of sample size?

Yes-- sample size, and effect size. He's saying that the results were strong enough that given the sample size, they were statistically significant.

Simple example: if I have a study of 20,000 people and I find that 51% of people prefer foos to bars, that may be similarly significant to your study of 20 people, all of which prefer foos to bars.

Re: Vertical vs. grid product listings - a surprising AB test

#13

Post by robryan »

It's interesting, I was considering moving to a grid. I think with the test conducted here, the images in the vertical listing are a bit bigger than those in the grid. Would be interesting to test the grid vs a more compact product listing.

All a function of how many products you have really, ideally your sending people to pages that are focused enough that they don't need to trawl through many products.

Re: Vertical vs. grid product listings - a surprising AB test

#14

Post by mattking »

This also has to do with the audience. Just because an A/B test measured results on a listing of tea products doesn't mean much. Consider how Amazon displays their product: http://i.mking.me/3t3e2E3z2G1Y1X0T2633 I can imagine Amazon has ton a bit of A/B testing...

Re: Vertical vs. grid product listings - a surprising AB test

#15

Post by dfischer »

I assumed list would do better.

There's basic underlying usability rules that permeate through everything.

The human eye scans like an F.

It's almost the golden rule of design. Always build your layouts in an F structure for the most important items.

A list design goes hand in hand with complimenting the F average.

Re: Vertical vs. grid product listings - a surprising AB test

#16

Post by baddox »

teye wrote: post #4

Not surprising at all. Conventional layout wisdom says give the eye a clear path in a direction it knows. A multi-dimensional grid takes you in a Z shape, whereas a vertical lineup's images and text are all aligned and easier to distinguish.

I was surprised that the author was assuming everyone would guess the grid view would do better. It seems completely obvious to me that a list view is better.

Re: Vertical vs. grid product listings - a surprising AB test

#17

Post by betterlabs »

dfischer wrote: post #15

I assumed list would do better. There's basic underlying usability rules that permeate through everything. The human eye scans like an F. It's almost the golden rule of design. Always build your layouts in an F structure for the most important items. A list design goes hand in hand with complimenting the F average.

You articulated my point better than I could have.

I too guessed and have always believed vertical listings are "more natural" way of consuming information than the grid listings. Grids are too overwhelming to digest any of the information and make a decision. They are probably good to browse sometimes.

I also wanted to say that a common perception that prettier is better is rarely true. Google is a great example and so was Plentyoffish. Utility and usability pretty much make the biggest difference and can make up for lack of pretty design. Infact sometimes pretty design is often not the most usable design.

Re: Vertical vs. grid product listings - a surprising AB test

#19

Post by Detrus »

The test doesn't control for all the variables to make the conclusion that verticals are better than grids. The grid elements having borders and shadows may hurt it. Hard to tell but pics in the grid look smaller than in vertical. The spacing between elements in grid is tighter than between elements in vertical.

I'd still expect vertical to do better even if the grid was equally well executed, but reality beats expectations.

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