Disguising the test address

Some tools let us specify the web address (URL) that participants will see when they do the test. This address is often auto-generated from the name we give to the test.

For example, for the “Acme topic – final” test shown in Naming the test earlier in this chapter, the test address might be something like this:

https://yourtool.com/acme-topic-final

There are two reasons why we might want to change this default address:

• Giving away the grouping method
  An observant user may notice the address and see that the tree is based on topics (rather than, say, audience):
  
  https://yourtool.com/acme-by-topic
  
  This is a minor giveaway, but we still recommend changing the address to something less descriptive, such as:
  
  https://yourtool.com/acme-tree-1

• Giving away the client’s identity
  If we’re doing a blind test (where the participants are not supposed to know who the site owner is, for whatever reason), a quick glance at the web address can blow our cover:
  
  https://yourtool.com/walmart-study-1
  
  We can keep the test blind by using a generic address like this:
  
  https://yourtool.com/study-1

Next: Selecting languages