A/B Testing Financial Calculators

In this week’s Which Test Won we get to compare two different versions of a financial loan leads calculator.

A Dutch financial company, Freo, ran an A/B test with their loan calculator situated on their homepage.

You can see the two versions below:

Version A

This version includes 3 separate text fields.

 

Version B

This version only requires one field of information and is calculated via a price slider.

 

 

The winner?

Version B.

By 19%.

So why did more users choose to go with this form?

From looking at the two versions there are a couple of obvious standouts:

Version B only asks one question, whereas Version A asks 3 including details from your previous loan provider such as the outstanding balance, and current repayments. This is just an extra roadblock for the users to actually enter the form as they won’t necessarily have these answers handy. It also means that users can’t use the homepage calculator as a quick check when hunting around. More detailed questions should be left for when the users are within the form and have the time to access the information asked.

Version B only asks for how much you want to borrow with your loan. It also uses a price slider rather than an input field so it gives users a clear indication of the scale. By seeing a minimum and maximum value it providers a more clear range rather than letting users enter any amount into a field that they may be unsure on. We don’t normally go with sliders as they can be fiddly especially on smaller touch devices, but it is good to show a range so that users have something to compare it with.

From this test we can learn that for calculators it is best to ask the least amount of questions possible in order to get users into the form quickly. It’s also important to provide a range via a slider, radio button etc. rather than just a blank text field so that users have something to use in comparison.