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Designer’s Preference vs. A/B Testing: What Really Drives Conversions?

October 5th 2025

I’ve noticed a growing trend on LinkedIn: web professionals confidently claiming they know the exact placement, color, and size of call-to-action (CTA) buttons. Their reasoning? “We’ve got a brilliant designer who knows all the tricks.”

Here’s the truth: design preferences are not the same as proven user experience (UX) insights. At best, they’re just educated guesses.

Why Designer Preferences Aren’t Enough

What do most designers do when deciding on button styles or layouts?

  • They follow the trends set by big-name brands like Apple, Nike, or even Amazon.
  • Or, they adapt to client requests based on what those clients have seen elsewhere.

The problem? These global brands have such strong recognition and loyalty that customers will buy regardless of UX design choices. You could put a white button on a white background, and people would still find a way to purchase.

Unless your store operates at that level of brand power, copying these design decisions won’t necessarily work. In fact, smaller businesses need to pay even more attention to UX because they can’t rely on brand recognition alone.

What Actually Matters: Your Users

The right design choices depend on your product and your target audience. Consider factors like:

  • Age (different age groups respond to colors and layouts differently)
  • Cultural background (color associations can vary globally)
  • Technical familiarity (how comfortable your audience is navigating websites or apps)

What works for one store may completely flop for another.

The Real Solution: A/B Testing

Instead of relying on gut feeling or design trends, the proven approach is A/B testing.

Here’s how to do it:

  1. Design Variants
    Work with your designer to create multiple versions of key pages (e.g., homepage, product detail page, landing page). Each variant should have different CTA placements, color combinations, or layout adjustments.
  2. Set Up Experiments
    On Shopify, tools like Intelligems, Google Optimize (deprecated, but alternatives exist), or Convert.com let you easily run controlled experiments. You can measure:
    • Conversion rate by page variant
    • Click-through rates on CTAs
    • User interactions with specific elements
  3. Run the Tests
    Direct portions of your traffic to each variant and gather data over a statistically significant period.
    For example: 50% of your customers see variant A – 50% of your customers see variant B
  4. Analyze & Optimize
    Compare results against your current baseline page. Did users click the right CTA? Did sales improve? Use this data to make permanent design decisions.

Final Thoughts

When working with a digital agency, make sure they don’t skip the testing stage. If they only rely on “what looks good to us” they may be designing for themselves, not for your customers.

Only through evidence-based design, powered by A/B testing, can you be confident that your site’s design is driving the best possible results.