The ABCs of A/B testing on mobile apps

A/B testing is a concept popularized within marketing departments as a way of rationalizing decisions around advertising, and now it's making its way into the world of mobile apps. Earlier this month Amazon launched the free beta version of an SDK designed to assist developers with A/B testing. According to David Hanson, who works on the development team at Concrete Software, the Eden Prairie, Minn.-based developer behind the mobile game Wordplosion, the SDK allows the company to create server calls that serve up the various versions of the game. Amazon has some statistical data available through the service that can assist with evaluating the results of the A/B tests, Hanson added.

"It's not just a bunch of people talking in a room about things that sound good but actually getting data about changes that you could make," he said. "You can try [ideas] both ways and see with the data [and] what's better and hopefully back up what we think we know." Feature