Building an A/B testing analytics system with R and Shiny

rstudio::conf 2019 industry

Emily Robinson

January 24, 2019

Online experimentation, or A/B Testing, is the gold standard for measuring the effectiveness of changes to a website. While A/B testing is used at tens of thousands of companies, it can seem difficult to parse without resorting to expensive end-to-end commercial options. Using DataCamp's system as an example, I'll illustrate how R is actually a great language for building powerful analytical and visualization A/B testing tools. We'll first dive into our open-source funneljoin package, which allows you to quickly analyze sequential actions using different types of behavioral funnels. We'll then cover the importance of setting up health checks for every experiment. Finally, we'll see how Shiny dashboards can help people monitor and quickly analyze multiple A/B tests each week.

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About the speaker

Emily Robinson

I work at DataCamp as a Data Scientist on the growth team. Previously, I was a Data Analyst at Etsy working with their search team to design, implement, and analyze experiments on the ranking algorithm, UI changes, and new features. In summer 2016, I completed Metis’s three-month, full-time Data Science Bootcamp, where I did several data science projects, ranging from using random forests to predict successful projects on DonorsChoose.org to building an application in R Shiny that helps data science freelancers find their best-fit jobs. Before Metis, I graduated from INSEAD with a Master’s degree in Management (specialization in Organizational Behavior). I also earned my bachelor’s degree from Rice University in Decision Sciences, an interdisciplinary major I designed that focused on understanding how people behave and make decisions.