What does "Treatment" mean?
Definition of Treatment in the context of A/B testing (online controlled experiments).
What is Treatment?
Alias: intervention
A treatment is any change in the user experience that is being subject to test in an A/B test. A treatment can be a change in the visual interface, in the flow of a process, the ordering of steps in a funnel, in wording (copy), in an algorithm (e.g. recommendation engine, upsell/cross-sell suggestions, etc.) and even backend infrastructure when it is possible to test that.
The nature of the intervention is irrelevant as long as one can construct a valid test for it.
Like this glossary entry? For an in-depth and comprehensive reading on A/B testing stats, check out the book "Statistical Methods in Online A/B Testing" by the author of this glossary, Georgi Georgiev.
About the author
Georgi has over twenty years of experience in online marketing, web analytics, statistics, and design of business experiments.
Author of the book "Statistical Methods in Online A/B Testing", white papers on statistical analysis of A/B tests, and a speaker, he has been distinguished as a winner in the Data & Analytics category of the 2024 Experimentation Thought Leadership Awards.
Statistical Methods in Online A/B Testing
Take your A/B testing program to the next level with the most comprehensive book on user testing statistics in e-commerce.
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