Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: Stanford University

Title of entry: A/B Testing Gets an Upgrade for the Digital Age

About this entry: Whenever you pick up your phone or open a browser, you’ve probably become an unwitting participant in an A/B test. Designers, engineers, and marketers are constantly throwing different options and choices at us to see if we prefer shoe, subject line, or show A or B. This simple experimental design has fueled a century of scientific breakthroughs. However, the increasing complexity of online platforms has revealed its limitations. Multiple Stanford Graduate School of Business professors are tackling this challenge, researching and collaborating on ways to upgrade the traditional A/B test. Their work isn’t just about streamlining apps; it is developing better ways to deliver medical and psychiatric care and create policies that help the people they’re intended to. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Guido Imbens explains, “The sweet spot is to find research that’s relevant to the tech companies — while realizing that… what we’re doing has relevance for other contexts as well.”

This article perfectly illustrates the depth and impact of research being done at Stanford GSB — one of the key areas we focus on in Stanford Business. We know that our alumni are keenly interested in continuing to hear about faculty research. One reader told us, “Especially fascinating to read what the GSB faculty has to say about timely issues and what they’re working on/researching.”