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Quality assurance (QA)

Last updated on Oct 23, 20265 min read
Table of contents

In short​

QA before going live helps you to detect errors early on, ensures a clean user experience and protects your data from distortions. Varify offers you several QA options for this - QA mode is recommended.

As soon as you have created your experiment and defined the page targeting and audience targeting, you can start QA mode and check whether your experiment is running as planned. In QA mode, your experiment is not yet tracked and is not shown to normal users. This way you can make sure that everything is working correctly before it goes live without your users noticing.

QA mode is particularly suitable if you want to check the following:

  • Experiments on individual pages and across several pages
  • whether your experiment targeting is working as expected
  • whether there are conflicts with other experiments

Step 1: Start QA mode​

  1. Open your experiment in the dashboard.
  2. Click „Preview (QA-Mode)“.
Varify Dashboard Experiment Preview Highlight

A modal opens.

Step 2: Open or share the variation​

In the modal you have these options:

  • Share the QA link: Send the link to colleagues so that they can test the experiment too.
  • Open on your phone: Open the QA link on your phone to check the variation on a mobile device.
  • „Open variation“: Opens the page with the active variation. This variation is only available through QA mode.
Varify QA Mode Modal

Step 3: Switch variations in the overlay​

On your website, you now see the Varify „QA Mode“ overlay. Use it to switch between the variations of your experiment.

You can also switch through the variations of other active experiments there. This allows you to recognize more quickly whether there are unwanted interactions between two or more experiments.

You can see whether your experiment is working on the current page in the „Targeted“ column:

  • Green tick: The targeting criteria match, the experiment is active on this page.
  • Grey X: The targeting criteria do not match here, the experiment is not displayed on this page.
QA Mode Modal auf Website

Step 4: Open variations from the dashboard​

In the dashboard, an experiment in QA mode is highlighted in yellow. Click „Force this variation“ next to a variation to open it, or copy the link to share it with others.

QA Mode in Dashboard

Step 5: End QA mode​

  • On your website: Click „Exit QA Mode“ in the overlay to leave QA mode in your browser.
  • In the dashboard: Click „Stop QA Mode“ to end QA mode for all QA users. You can then start your experiment.
important

Notice: This method is not suited for a thorough QA. Use the QA mode instead.

The preview is part of the editor. When you save a variation in the editor, you can open it as a preview. A new tab opens with this variation.

Save & Preview in the Editor

Varify appends a preview parameter to the URL, for example ?varify-preview="Experimentname". You can also append the parameter to other URLs to view the variation on different pages.

Keep the following in mind:

  • The preview is independent of the targeting. The variation is displayed even if the targeting conditions do not match.
  • The variation is only visible as long as the preview parameter is appended to the URL. Without the parameter, you see the page as normal.
  • Other experiments are not displayed.

This QA method is particularly suitable if you want to view a variation quickly or share it with others. It is best suited for single pages on which no other experiment is active.

QA via the Varify Chrome Extension​

important

Notice: This method is not suited for a thorough QA. Use the QA mode instead.

With the Varify Chrome Extension, you can force variations via the URL parameter „varify-force“. To do this, use this format: varify-force={experimentId}-{variationId}.

With the Chrome extension, this is even easier: you select the experiment and variation in a dropdown and save yourself the trouble of manually building the parameter.

This method is well suited to testing an experiment on different pages and also checking the targeting. We still recommend the QA mode because you can see the variations more clearly and switch between them more quickly.

Varify preview plugin reporting „Snippet found“ and listing four active experiments with their assigned variation

How to use the Chrome Extension:

  1. Set the traffic distribution of your experiment to 100% Original. This way, the experiment will not be visible to normal users (everyone will see the original version).
  2. Open a page on which you want your experiment to work. Make sure that you fulfill the targeting conditions.
  3. Click on the Chrome Extension and select the active experiment in the „Experiment Variation Switcher“ (you are initially in the original version).
  4. Select the variation you want to test and click on „Switch variation“.
  5. The force parameter sets you to the selected variation. You remain there until you actively switch again. This allows you to test the experiment at your leisure.
important

Notice: Note: During the QA of the experiment, tracking is triggered in different variations. You should therefore pause and duplicate the experiment again after your QA. Then start the new duplicated experiment with a 50:50 traffic distribution in order to have cleansed data.

Running experiment whose page targeting matches demo.com; the Original gets 100 % traffic and Variation 1 gets 0 %

Example with the Varify Chrome Extension:
In the picture you can see an experiment with the name „Example Experiment“. It is active on „https://www.demo.com“ and the traffic distribution is set to 100% Original. This means: Without any action, you will always see the original variation.

This is how you force a variation with the extension:

  1. Open „https://www.demo.com“ in the browser.
  2. Click on the Varify Chrome Extension.
  3. In the „Experiment Variation Switcher“ area, select „Example Experiment“. You are now in the original variation.
  4. Select the variation you want to test and click on „Switch variation“.

What happens in the background:

  • The extension automatically appends the „varify-force“ parameter to the URL, for example:

    https://www.demo.com/?varify-force=6396-7385

  • This will place you directly in this variation, although the traffic distribution is set to 100% Original.

This allows you to switch to another variation or back to the original:

  • Simply select the original version of the experiment in the extension and click on „Switch variation“ again. The URL will be adjusted accordingly.

  • Alternatively, you can simply set 0 for the original variation for the variation ID in the parameter, for example:

    https://www.demo.com/?varify-force=6396-0

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