This was a great demo, but if I could make one suggestion- I think it would be a more useful exercise to group layouts by category and then test based on educated assumptions from there.
What does that mean? Well I believe strongly in the "less is more" strategy, and I have a hunch that the real difference in results lay in the lack of options for visitors to the Basecamp intro page. With the two previous long-form versions, users had the option to spend time reading and eventually navigating away from the page. With the photo page, there is really only one option- go to the sign-up page now. The images certainly make the first impression very engaging, and I think it is well done, but I would be interested to see whether a meaningful change would occur if instead of the smiling people, you had a beautiful cityscape of the Chicago skyline, or no image at all. I suspect it wouldn't be huge. My point is that it would be useful to gain actionable insights that could be repeated, such as "always make a sign-up button the only option and focal point of a splash page" as opposed to "always use smiling people." Otherwise, the real value of the lesson may have been overlooked.
What does that mean? Well I believe strongly in the "less is more" strategy, and I have a hunch that the real difference in results lay in the lack of options for visitors to the Basecamp intro page. With the two previous long-form versions, users had the option to spend time reading and eventually navigating away from the page. With the photo page, there is really only one option- go to the sign-up page now. The images certainly make the first impression very engaging, and I think it is well done, but I would be interested to see whether a meaningful change would occur if instead of the smiling people, you had a beautiful cityscape of the Chicago skyline, or no image at all. I suspect it wouldn't be huge. My point is that it would be useful to gain actionable insights that could be repeated, such as "always make a sign-up button the only option and focal point of a splash page" as opposed to "always use smiling people." Otherwise, the real value of the lesson may have been overlooked.