Hacker News Reader

Honestly, I should add the point that client-side A/B testing is the devil and should be avoided in the first place.

Ideally it should be on the server side, so you're right there. Client side A/B testing isn't the best way to handle things.

However, it's sometimes a necessary evil due to:

1. The original company not budgeting time/effort from their existing dev teams to work on A/B testing, and wanting to outsource it instead.

2. Said company and their tech department being nervous about letting outsiders actually access the source code for their site/app.

3. Or said company wanting the analytics/features that VWO/Target/Optimisely/whatever offer, and not wanting to have code up the same analytics toolbox themself.

All three of your points are correct, so please don’t resent my response: Client-side A/B testing exists because ‘we should be able to do this without a deploy’. And they’re right.

But sorting all the paragraphs in alphabetical order increased reader engagement metrics! How would I ever have discovered readers wanted that without A/B testing?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com