File: README — Documentation for abingo

A/Bingo Version 1.0.0 - Rails 3 Version

**This is a port of ABingo to work as a rails 3 plugin. It is not extensivly tested but appears to work. Future work will make it easier to use.**

**Known Issues with rails 3**

* **Named Conversions do not work (eg :conversion => "signup")**

Rails A/B testing. One minute to install. One line to set up a new A/B test. One line to track conversion.

For usage notes, see: www.bingocardcreator.com/abingo

Installation instructions are below usage examples.

Key default features:

* Conversions only tracked once per individual.
* Conversions only tracked if individual saw test.
* Same individual ALWAYS sees same alternative for same test.
* Syntax sugar.  Specify alternatives as a range, array, hash of alternative to weighting, or just let it default to true or false.
* A simple z-test of statistical significance, with output so clear anyone in your organization
     can understand it.

Example: View

<% ab_test("login_button", ["/images/button1.jpg", "/images/button2.jpg"]) do |button_file| %>
  <%= img_tag(button_file, :alt => "Login!") %>
<% end %>

Example: Controller

def register_new_user
  #See what level of free points maximizes users' decision to buy replacement points.
  @starter_points = ab_test("new_user_free_points", [100, 200, 300])
end

Example: Controller

def registration
  if (ab_test("send_welcome_email"), :conversion => "purchase")
    #send the email, track to see if it later increases conversion to full version
  end
end

Example: Conversion tracking (in a controller!)

def buy_new_points
  #some business logic
  bingo!("buy_new_points")  #Either a conversion named with :conversion or a test name.
end

Example: Conversion tracking (in a view)

Thanks for signing up, dude! <% bingo!("signup_page_redesign") >

Example: Statistical Significance Testing

Abingo::Experiment.last.describe_result_in_words
=> "The best alternative you have is: [0], which had 130 conversions from 5000 participants (2.60%).
    The other alternative was [1], which had 1800 conversions from 100000 participants (1.80%).
    This difference is 99.9% likely to be statistically significant, which means you can be extremely
    confident that it is the result of your alternatives actually mattering, rather than being due to
    random chance.  However, this doesn't say anything about how much the first alternative is really
    likely to be better by."

Installation

Configure the Gem

gem 'abingo', :git => "git://github.com/wildfalcon/abingo.git", :branch => "rails3"

bundle install

Generate the database tables

Creates tables “experiments” and “alternatives”. If you use these names already you will need to do some hacking)

rails g abingo_migration
rake db:migrate

Configure a Cache

A/Bingo makes HEAVY use of the cache to reduce load on thedatabase and share potentially long-lived “temporary” data, such as what alternative a given visitor should be shown for a particular test.

A/Bingo defaults to using the same cache store as Rails. These instructions are on how to use the memcache-addon in heroku.

heroku addons:add memcache:5mb

#Gemile
group :production do
  gem "memcache-client"
  gem 'memcached-northscale', :require => 'memcached'
end

#config/environments/production.rb
# Use a different cache store in production
# config.cache_store = :mem_cache_store
config.cache_store = :mem_cache_store, Memcached::Rails.new

Tell A/Bingo a user’s identity

So abingo knows who a users is if they come back to a test. (The same identity will always see the same alternative for the same test.) How you do this is up to you – I suggest integrating with your login/account infrastructure. The simplest thing that can possibly work

#Somewhere in application.rb
before_filter :set_abingo_identity

def set_abingo_identity  
  #treat all bots as one user to prevent skewing results
  if request.user_agent =~ /\b(Baidu|Gigabot|Googlebot|libwww-perl|lwp-trivial|msnbot|SiteUptime|Slurp|WordPress|ZIBB|ZyBorg)\b/i  
     Abingo.identity = "robot"  
   elsif current_user  
     Abingo.identity = current_user.id  
   else  
     session[:abingo_identity] ||= rand(10 ** 10)  
     Abingo.identity = session[:abingo_identity]  
   end  
end

Create the Dashboard

You need to create a controller which includes the methods from the Abingo module, as well as generate the views. You can customise the view if you wish. Don’t forget to authenticate access to the controller

rails g controller admin/abingo_dashboard

#app/controllers/admin/abingo_dashboard_controller.rb
class Admin::AbingoDashboardController < ApplicationController
  include Abingo::Controller::Dashboard
end

#routes.rb
namespace :admin do
  get "ab_dashboard"   => "abingo_dashboard#index"
  post "ab_end_experiment/:id"   => "abingo_dashboard#end_experiment"
end

rails g abingo_views

Run your first test