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For example, if you post a web ad on your site that asks visitors to do a tree test, you may want to find out if return visitors do better than first-time visitors (presumably because they’re already familiar with your site’s structure). If you add a survey question that asks them “Is this your first visit to our site?”, you can later split up the results into two groups (yes and no) and see if and where their results differ.
- pic of sample question
Note that you do need to plan your questions carefully to make sure you’re getting the splits you want to compare.
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The main purpose of a tree test, of course, is to test the tree you’ve come up with, before you build the site. However, because tree tests are very brief (typically about 5 minutes), you also have a chance to ask a few fill-in-the-gap questions.
Most tree-testing tools (~check this) let you add survey questions to your tree test. Before you jump in and add a whole slew of research questions, however, consider the following:
- Questions that help you analyze the results later are usually more important than general research questions, so add those first.
- Tree-test tools typically do not offer the advanced capabilities of dedicated survey tools (such as if-then question structures or logic and fancy reporting), so keep your “mini survey” simple.
- Don’t irritate your participants with a long list of follow-up questions. They have done what you asked by completing your tree test, and while they are probably willing to answer a few more questions, their goodwill will erode rapidly if you demand substantially more time and effort from them.
We recommend keeping the total number of questions to a handful 5 or less. Because we usually ask some data-filtering questions to help our analysis, this leaves us room to ask 2-3 general research questions at most.
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