Multivariate and Sequential Testing Cautions
Know when complex testing misleads.
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Review my testing approach. Tests running now: [CURRENT_TESTS]. Traffic: [TRAFFIC]. How decisions are made: [DECISION_PROCESS]. Explain the problems of checking results daily and stopping early, running many variants at once, testing overlapping changes on the same audience, and using many metrics until one looks good. Give a simple example of how false positives increase when you look at twenty metrics. Recommend rules for my situation: one primary metric, fixed duration, correction for multiple variants, and an approach for overlapping tests. Provide a checklist and say when to seek an analyst. Keep the explanation accessible. Add a worked illustration: if you look at twenty independent metrics with a threshold that gives a false alarm in about one test in twenty, you should expect roughly one metric to look significant by chance alone. Provide a rule for pre-registering one primary metric and treating others as exploratory. Explain sequential monitoring in plain words, and recommend either a fixed duration or a method designed for continuous monitoring, chosen with an analyst. Include a one-page decision rule template that the team signs before starting each test, with the primary metric, the minimum duration, the number of variants, the correction used, and the person who decides.
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