Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2024 19:44:30 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: <1364554097.15.1711655070769@daeeb5886584> Subject: Exported From Confluence MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="----=_Part_14_1027174759.1711655070768" ------=_Part_14_1027174759.1711655070768 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: file:///C:/exported.html
Perhaps the most common mistake in tree preparation is omitting = =E2=80=9Chidden=E2=80=9D content. This is caused by following the = page titles of the site, instead of looking for logical chunks of content.<= /p>
By =E2=80=9Chidden=E2=80=9D, we mean content that is on a site p= age, but doesn=E2=80=99t have a page of its own, so to speak. This= most often happens on landing pages, where we talk about topic A on the pa= ge, then link to topics B and C a level below. Because A doesn=E2=80=99t ha= ve a page title of its own, it =E2=80=9Cdisappears=E2=80=9D from our tree, = because we=E2=80=99ve been focusing on page titles.
For example, suppose we have a Contact Us section (and suppose = we=E2=80=99ve decided to actually include it because its organization needs= testing). On the website, the Contact Us page has the company=E2= =80=99s main contact info (in New York City), and then links to subpages fo= r Asia and Europe:
When we put this into a text tree, we get the following:
Now, when the participant gets a task like =E2=80=9CCall up the company = at their headquarters=E2=80=9D, they click Contact Us and see two = choices =E2=80=93 Asia or Europe.
What happened is that the =E2=80=9CUSA=E2=80=9D content got lost under t= he Contact Us topic. Many tree-testing tools only let us choose an= answer at the end of the tree (a so-called =E2=80=9Cleaf node=E2=80=9D), s= o Contact Us would not be selectable. Even in tools that let us se= lect =E2=80=9Cmidway=E2=80=9D topics, participants tend to focus on the =E2= =80=9Cnext=E2=80=9D choices that appear =E2=80=93 in this case, Asia and Europe.
Once we=E2=80=99ve spotted this type of implicit content, it=E2=80=99s u= sually easy to fix. In our example, we would add an explicit USA t= opic:
Now the tree represents the logical chunks of content on the sit= e, not just a list of page titles.
This is more of a problem with testing existing trees than with new tree= s that we create ourselves, because the existing trees are often extracted = from a CMS, and they=E2=80=99re focused on pages and their titles. = When we extract an existing tree from a CMS, we should take some time to co= mpare the =E2=80=9Cpage=E2=80=9D tree with the actual content, especially t= he =E2=80=9Chidden=E2=80=9D content of landing pages.
When we=E2=80=99re preparing our tree for testing, we must watch= for topics that have a single subtopic. In most cases, this is a = clue that some content is hiding there.
Suppose we have the following headings, taken from a power-company site:=
Clearly, there are two meter-related topics here =E2=80=93 Reading y= our meter and Sending us your meter reading. The Reading = your meter page contains text on how to read a meter, and adds a link = to a subpage, Sending us your meter reading.
However, during tree testing, when the participant clicks Reading yo= ur meter, there is only a single subtopic to select, Sending us yo= ur meter reading. We need to add the =E2=80=9Creading=E2=80=9D content= as a selectable item, like this:
Sometimes, though, there really is only one piece of co= ntent in a section. For example, if a company only sells one product, t= heir Products section may only have the one subtopic, so it makes sens= e that it=E2=80=99s the only selectable one in the Products subtre= e.
Next: Dealing with shortcuts= and duplicated content