Whatcha reading? 15+ A/B Testing Books and Helpful Resources

Favourite Resources, Articles and Books on Experimentation, Decision Making and Product-led Growth from the Experts

Hi, I’m Chris, Head of Product at ABsmartly. Throughout my career, I’ve found books to be an invaluable resource for mastering experimentation, honing a product-focused mindset, and understanding the fundamentals of statistics. Whether you're just getting started or you're a seasoned pro, I believe there’s always something new to learn.

And because most of us are in a dark, dreary winter, this is the “thinking of summer” reading list—because reading is an all-season endeavour, right? Think of it as a curated Goodreads shelf designed specifically for experimenters, A/B testing enthusiasts, designers and generally curious folks. So here goes:

Must-Read Books for Experimenters, Designers, Product peeps

Here are some of my top picks, in no particular order:

• Transformed by Marty Cagan. It gives a clear, practical framework for companies to successfully transition into truly empowered product organisations, with lots of real-world examples and deep industry insights.

• Product Operations by Melissa Perri. This book is often considered essential reading for experimenters as it bridges the gap between product, data, and execution—ensuring experiments drive real impact at scale Side note: Melissa also has an interview with Lenny Rachitsky and Marty Cagan has a great interview with Lenny as well. 

• Experimentation Matters: Unlocking the Potential of New Technologies for Innovation by Stefan Thomke. It explores how systematic experimentation drives innovation, for actionable insights to test, learn, and iterate effectively.

• Design for Impact by Erin Weigel. Erin brings her happy demeanour to this book on how to use design and experimentation to create meaningful, customer-centric product improvements that drive business success.

• Statistical Methods in Online A/B Testing by Georgi Georgiev. As Kelly states below, this is a bible of sorts, it summarises the fundamentals of an otherwise complicated and intimidating topic, but in an approachable way.

• Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments by Ronny Kohavi. One of the most known and fundamental books on A/B testing is this one by Ronny. It provides rigorous methodologies, real-world case studies, and best practices for running reliable online experiments at scale.

Expert Recommendations for everyone in the field 

We also reached out to our advisors, partners, and industry gurus to get their top book recommendations (with one rule—they couldn’t recommend their own work!). This list has a mix for everyone, from Systems Thinking to Data Science, simple test design techniques to ultra complex statistics deep dive. Here’s what they had to say:

• Alun Lucas, Managing Director at Zuko Analytics recommends: Web Form Design by Luke Wroblewski.

  • Why they like it: If you want to break the rules you need to learn them first. Forms are a critical part of any user journey so should be an important part of any testing programme. This groundbreaking book outlined the basic principles of form design so you can easily get to a competent form conversion baseline. From there you can develop your test hypotheses based on your own unique audience, product and market to optimize further.

  
  

• André Vieira, Founder at Looptimize recommends: Science and Human Behavior by B. F. Skinner. 

  • Why they like it: Reading Science and Human Behavior by B.F. Skinner equips you with foundational behavioural psychology insights to understand, predict, and influence customer actions. It goes deep into the roots of why people behave the way they do, providing you with a scientific framework for analyzing behavior, which you can leverage to design personalised experiences and optimize customer journeys effectively.

    
    

• Ben Labay, CEO at Speero recommends: Transformed by Marty Cagan and Song of Significance by Seth Godin.

  • Why they like it: These two books are the yin and yang of modern work. They explain the HOW and WHY (respectively) for what work should (in my opinion of course) be in today's culture and market. 

• Chris Gibbins, Chief Experience Officer at Creative CX, recommends: Inspired, Empowered and Transformed in the “Product is Hard” box set by Marty Cagan, Christian Idiodi, Lea Hickman, Chris Jones, Martina Lauchengco (known as the SVPG Silicon Valley Product Group).

  • Why they like it: Inspired and Empowered in particular were extremely useful a few years back when I needed to learn a lot more about product, as our target audience for our consultancy shifted away from marketing toward product teams. 

  • The Person in Personalisation: The Story Of How Marketing's Most Treasured Possession Became Anything but Personal by David Mannheim because of the amount of new research he put into the subject. It’s well-written and an engaging story telling format of how to take things back to basics.

  • Many of the already mentioned books e.g. Erin's Design for Impact which was excellent, and provided me with some very useful ideas and inspiration for explaining experimentation concepts more clearly.

• Craig Sullivan, Experimentation Consultant recommends: Connect : Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues by David Bradford, Carole Robin.

  • Why they recommend it: Carole Robin did a great talk I saw this year and her advice in her book, "Connect", is really great and accessible.  It's all about how you can flip many of life's problems into solutions or replace assumptions with connections.

  • Ruben de Boer also did a great LinkedIn post about 'leaning in' to stakeholders and colleagues.  He touched on how important it is to connect and use conversations to change relationships.  To figure out not "how you get people to do what you want" but find out "why they can't or won't" and "what you can help with" instead.  

  • Craig also recommends Machiavelli's The Prince as essential reading for surviving at any company with heavy office politics

  • Lastly Craig recommends The No A**hole Rule by Robert I. Sutton.  Craig says it’s a practical manual for dealing with people who ruin your workplace.

  
  

• Erin Weigel, Senior Group Product Design Manager at Deliveroo (and ABsmartly advisor) recommends:  Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows and Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. 

  • Why they like it: I like Thinking in Systems because it opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about the world and our place within it. It gave me the tools and language to communicate things I observe around me. As a designer and experimenter, it’s all about understanding the impact you have on people and the world around you. So, Meadows’ poetic way of making me conscious of a whole new way of thinking was profound to me.

  • Don’t Make Me Think is a holy book for the craft of design. Not only is it chock full of very useful information, but Krug’s writing style is hilarious and engaging. I’ve based many (winning) experiment ideas off of the stuff I learned in Krug’s book.

    
    

• Georgi Georgiev, owner at WebFocus LLC recommends: Statistical Inference as Severe Testing by Deborah G. Mayo.

  • Why they like it: I appreciate that it provides a solid philosophical foundation for the interpretation of A/B test outcomes, as well as bringing a much needed clarity on a variety of poignant topics in statistical inference. 

  • I also recommend Probability Theory and Statistical Inference (2nd edition) by Aris Spanos. I recommend it for its much more technical, but equally philosophically grounded take on the foundational aspects of probability theory and statistics.

• Kelly Wortham, from the Test & Learn Community recommends: Analytics The Right Way by Tim Wilson and Dr. Joe Sutherland. 

  • Why they like it: It’s incredibly easy to read, full of excellent recommendations, and has laugh-out-loud footnotes that will keep you turning the pages. As a bonus, they ask you to measure each chapter - practicing what they preach. 

  • I also cannot recommend enough: Design for Impact by Erin Weigel. She makes experimentation make sense - breaking it down and then building it back up so that things that used to be complex to explain or understand become a piece of cake. Bonus: it’s full of tools and templates. 

  • Beyond these two - my two experimentation Bibles: Statistical Methods in Online A/B Testing by Georgi Georgiev and Field Experiments: Design, Analysis, and Interpretation by Gerber & Green. I love these books because they are my go-to when I need deep statistical knowledge for teaching. One online - the other offline.

• Lotte Cornellissen, Managing Director at Online Dialogue recommends: The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer.

  • Why they recommend it: This book is about how seemingly mundane workday events can make or break employees' inner work lives. But it's forward momentum in meaningful work--progress--that creates the best inner work lives. Although this may seem obvious, we are not always aware of the importance of the feeling of making progress. In fact, in the same study, managers were asked to rank five factors that motivate people, such as rewards and recognition, in order of importance. Only 5% of the leaders placed ‘making progress’ at the top of the list. However, the diaries revealed that it is actually the most important source of motivation.

  • Lotte also recommends Carol Dweck's talks (not a book per se). They are about a fixed and a growth mindset which is important in experimentation as it’s all about learning and really having a growth mindset. 

• Lukas Vermeer, Director of Experimentation at Vista recommends: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn. 

  • Why they like it: It introduces the idea of scientific progress as an evolutionary process; a revolutionary idea! Introduced the idea of “paradigm shifts”. Not an easy read but changed my thinking about the nature of scientific progress.

  • Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan.  Heath. Why they like it: Improving experimentation in an organisation involves a lot of change management. Switch is an excellent blend of anecdotal examples, scientific explanations, and practical guidance; presented in an overarching framework that makes all of it easy to grasp. Hat tip to Ruben de Boer for recommending this book to me.

  • Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity by Etienne Wenger. Why they like it: Although it’s not an easy read, it's worth the effort if you’re interested in learning about learning communities. Take your time to process it and negotiate your own meaning.

Bonus chapter!

We found a few curated lists

• Alex Birkett put a fantastic top 10 list together here - check it out.

• Pawel Huryn put some books together on Product Discovery in a Linkedin post here

What Are Your Go-To Reads?

I’d love to hear what books, articles, or resources have shaped your thinking on experimentation and A/B testing. Drop your recommendations in the comments or share them with us on LinkedIn!

Happy reading, and happy experimenting!