Ablab

A minimal library for performing AB-tests in Rails applications and tracking their result and statistical significance.

Installation and Usage

Add this line to your Rails app's Gemfile and run bundler:

gem 'ablab'

In your app's config/routes.rb, mount Ablab::Engine:

# config/routes.rb

mount Ablab::Engine => '/ablab'

Include Ablab::Helper in your app/controller/application_controller.rb:

# app/controller/application_controller.rb

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  include Ablab::Helper
end

Add the Ablab JavaScript in your bundle:

// app/assets/javascripts/application.js

//= require ablab/tracker

Create an initializer file to setup your experiments:

# config/initializers/ablab.rb

Ablab.setup do
  # Use redis to store experiment tracking data
  store :redis, host: 'localhost', port: 6379

  # Protect dashboard under HTTP basic auth
  dashboard_credentials name: 'sterling', password: 'd4ng3rz0ne'

  # Setup experiment
  experiment :add_to_cart_button do
    # Describe the experiment
    description 'Experiments on different versions of the cart button'

    # Describe the goal tracked
    goal 'click on add-to-cart button'

    # A control group, named `:control`, is automatically generated
    # for each experiment. Create your own groups by calling `group`:
    group :version_a, description: 'big green button'
    group :version_b, description: 'smaller button at the top of the page'

    # It is possible to setup callbacks for when a view or success is tracked,
    # for example to send data to other services:
    on_track do |event, experiment_name, group_name, ablab_id, request|
      # ...send data to external service.
      # `event` can be :view or :success
      # `ablab_id` is a alphanumeric string identifying the user session
      # `request` is the Rails request object, useful if you need access to
      # cookies, etc.
    end
  end

  # You can setup as many experiments as you wish
  experiment :search do
    description 'Search experiments'

    # You can restrict participation to the experiment only to a certain
    # percentage of users. Users that are not participating will have a nil
    # group for this experiment
    percentage_of_visitors 20

    # You can affect the size of a group by assigning it a weight. In this case
    # the group :ctr will be 3 times bigger than the others
    group :ctr, description: 'boost by CTR', weight: 3
    group :gmv, description: 'boost by GMV'
  end

  # Callbacks can also be added for all experiments:
  on_track do |event, experiment_name, group_name, ablab_id, request|
    # ...do something
  end

  # Setup a handler for tracking exceptions, so they don't crash the app
  on_tracking_exception do |exception|
    puts exception.message
  end

  # Setup a filter for tracking
  allow_tracking do |experiment_name, group_name, ablab_id, request|
    # return false to disable tracking for this request
    if request.headers['User-Agent'].include?('bot')
      false
    else
      true
    end
  end
end

In your controller or view code use the helper to implement the experiments:

# In app controllers/views code

# Write your code conditional to the current user's group, in this case
# :control, :version_a or :version_b
case experiment(:add_to_cart_button).group
when :version_a
  # ...render version A
when :version_b
  # ...render version B
else
  # ...control group
end

Track views and goals in Ruby:

experiment(:add_to_cart_button).track_view!    # to track view
experiment(:add_to_cart_button).track_success! # to track goal

...or in JavaScript:

Ablab.trackView('add_to_cart_button')    // to track view
Ablab.trackSuccess('add_to_cart_button') // to track goal

Then go to yourapp.com/ablab to see the experiment dashboard.

For testing purposes, you can force yourself in a specific group for an experiment by adding a special ablab_group parameter to your request:

http://my_application.com/some_path?ablab_group=experiment_name:group_name

jalyna/ablab

Ablab

Installation and Usage

Screenshot

Feature Wishlist

Contributing