On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 4:50 PM, Rand Montoyarmontoya@wikimedia.org wrote:
Wikimedians--
As many of you know, last month we began work on exploring the visibility of the donate button on all Wikimedia projects. After a long comment period, we received many comments and many new ideas. Some of these ideas we have incorporated into a new set of test buttons. Thank you to everyone who took the time to evaluate Round 1 buttons. You can see those discussions here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Donation_buttons_upgrade/Rou...
We have 4 designs that we will be testing on the Wikipedia:EN main skin during August and the first part of September. We are going to evaluate each button for one full week. This process will unfold over the next two months.
You can see the designs and timeline at this link: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Donation_buttons_upgrade
Testing should be done in parallel, not in sequence. History has demonstrated that donors have a tendency to respond disproportionately to "the new thing". Which means that whatever button you test first will have an advantage over whichever one you test last. Probably the easiest way to get a reasonable distribution is to vary which button people see based on their IP.
-Robert Rohde