Tests
How do I set the bar, and why can't I change it later?
Why it works this way
You set the bar before you look, because a bar set afterwards only describes what you already saw.
A bar set after you have seen the results is not a test. It describes the answer you already have, and it is easy to nudge down when the news is thin. So the bar goes first, and then it stays.
What we gave up: the comfort of fixing a bar once the results are in, and a bar the product quietly writes and calls yours. The product keeps the brief's suggestion apart from what you committed to, and says which is which when the result is read.
What it is
The bar is what you decide would count as a yes, written before you look at what came back. On a test of one idea it sits under the title as two lines: True if and False if. A test that compares cards has no bar, because its answer is a pick (see "How do I compare options and make the call?").
How to use it
- Open the test. The brief has already proposed both lines. They are a suggestion, and they are not your commitment until you act on them.
- Make the bar yours in one of two ways. Press the pencil beside the lines, rewrite either one and press Save. Or tell Iris, your AI guide, what would have to be true for this to be a yes. When your answer is something that can be checked, she offers a chip, Set this as the bar, with the bar written out from what you told her. Read it before you tap: nothing is set until you do.
- Write it as a number out of a number: "6 of the 10 bring it up before I mention it."
- Go and gather. The bar stays on the page while you do.
If a test's brief came with no proposal at all, the test opens on one question first, "What would make you believe it?", and starts when you have answered it.
Once you have evidence, the bar is locked. Anything you log counts: a conversation, a note, a number or a result. The pencil goes, and the page says why: "The bar is fixed once you start gathering. Changing it now would fit it to what you have already seen. Log this round, and set a new bar for the next one." When you take "Test it again" or "Change one thing" after a result, the test reopens and you set a new bar for the new run.
What it will never do
- Report its own suggestion back to you as your commitment.
- Let the bar move once you have evidence.
If something looks off
- Your bar feels loose. Until you log anything, you can rewrite it with the pencil, or tell Iris what would have to be true for this to be a yes. Once you log something, it is locked.
- "The bar is fixed once you start gathering." You added something to the test, so the bar is locked for this run. It reopens for the next run.
- You never set your own. The result then says the bar was the brief's suggestion, not your commitment.
- "False if" is empty. That is allowed. "True if" cannot be.
- An old chip. A chip left in the conversation from before you started gathering will not set a bar after the lock.