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Re:GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism by adrianhoward on Friday April 27, 2012 @06:17AM (#3898385)
It is possible that overuse of A/B testing results in a local maximum, with sweeping changes needed to reach the global maximum.

That's not overuse - that's just bad use :-) There is nothing to stop people split testing radical redesigns.

Re:GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism by alextp on Friday April 27, 2012 @07:00AM (#3898474)
It's actually a more subtle problem: if you test a radical redesign, there's a higher likelihood it will fail even if a subsequent series of small changes to it would have produced something better, just because the incumbent is so well optimized.
Re:GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism by adrianhoward on Friday April 27, 2012 @07:05AM (#3898486)
So, so right.

What I was trying to say was that the problem isn't with A/B testing - it's with overly simplistic usage and interpretation of A/B testing.