In today’s reality of website optimisation, user experience reigns supreme and consequently A/B testing is the cornerstone of online success. A/B testing allows businesses to experiment with different versions of their website to determine which one performs better in terms of user engagement, conversions, and other key metrics. However, with limited resources and countless potential tests to run, how do you decide efficiently which ideas to prioritise?
This is where prioritisation frameworks come into play. Several frameworks have been developed, all aim to help marketing or product teams prioritising work through data-driven decision-making. Popular frameworks include PIE, ICE and PXL. All have their strengths and weaknesses.
In this article, we’ll unpack the PIE framework, exploring how it works and show you with a simple case study how to use it. The beauty of the PIE framework is how simple and effective it is. It helps businesses prioritise quickly their A/B test ideas based on their potential impact, importance for the business and ease of implementation. Let’s take a closer look.
Understanding the PIE Framework
The PIE framework, developed by Chris Goward at Widerfunnel, offers a systematic approach to prioritising A/B test ideas. Here’s a brief overview of each component:
- Potential: Potential impact a test idea could have on your key metrics. Will it significantly uplift user engagement, conversions or drive revenue? Check your web analytics data, customer research, and heuristic analysis of key user journeys. It’s a good idea to focus on your worst performers.
- Importance: Significance of the test idea relative to your business goals and revenue. How much traffic does the page get and how much do you spend for this traffic? The most important pages have the highest volume and the costliest traffic.
- Ease: Resources required to implement the test idea. How simple is it to get done? Simple, straightforward tests should be prioritised over more complex ones that require extensive development or design work.
Applying the PIE Framework
Now that we understand the components of the PIE framework, let’s see how to apply it in practice:
Prioritise Tests: Finally, rank all test ideas based on their PIE scores, with the highest-scoring ideas taking precedence. This will help you focus your resources and efforts on the tests that offer the greatest potential for impact with the least amount of effort.
Identify Test Ideas: Start by brainstorming a list of potential A/B test ideas. These could range from minor tweaks to major redesigns, but they should all be aimed at improving some aspect of the user experience. If you lack this experience in-house, we can generate high-impact test ideas for your specific UX challenges.
Score Each Idea: Next, assign a score to each test idea based on its potential, importance and ease of implementation. Use a scale of 1 to 10 for each aspect (10 being the highest score). Be objective and data-driven in your assessments, relying on insights from user research, web analytics and past experimentation.
Calculate PIE Scores: Once you’ve scored each test idea, calculate its PIE score by adding up all 3 scores (potential, importance, ease) and then divide by 3. This average score will give you a numerical value that represents the overall priority of each test idea.
Photo: Jason Goodman on Unsplash
Case Study: The PIE Framework in Action
To illustrate the effectiveness of the PIE framework, let’s consider a hypothetical case study:
Scenario
An e-commerce retailer wants to increase conversions on their product pages.
Test Ideas
The product team came together in a quick brainstorming and generated these ideas for new A/B tests:
- Adding customer reviews and ratings
- Adding a 1-click checkout feature
- Making “Add to Cart” button sticky
PIE Scores
Finally the team scored each test idea (methodology see above) and calculated the following PIE scores:
Conclusion
In order to stay ahead in the highly competitive landscape of online business, optimising your website for maximum performance is essential. The PIE framework offers a structured approach to prioritising A/B test ideas, helping you focus your efforts where they’ll have the greatest impact. By systematically evaluating the potential, importance, and ease of implementation of all test ideas, you can make informed decisions that drive tangible improvements in user experience, conversions, and ultimately, business success.
Would you like to run A/B testing more efficiently and identify the most impactful tests for your business? Leverage our comprehensive UX and testing expertise and drop us a message here on Linkedin or book a no-obligation call on our website www.uxandwhy.com.
Thanks for reading!
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