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Maria reviews the results of the test with the team, and they agree to go with the second topic tree, but incorporating some elements of the first audience tree that worked particularly well. This is the structure they build the site with, and when they run a usability test on the alpha version, it performs well except for a few minor changes that they can make before the site is released.
Once the site is live, the analytics show the expected areas of traffic. A few users complain about not being able to find things because they’ve been moved, but these complaints dwindle after the first month as users become familiar with the new structure.
"Took a bit to get used to, but it's now much easier to find what I want." - a satisfied site visitor
Maria, her project team, and upper management are all happy with the new site:
"Great feedback from users, and traffic has jumped too. The committee was happy to give us the go-ahead for the exciting new stuff in release 2." - site owner
The moral of our story
Don't dismiss this is a straw-man example; over the years we've seen an astonishing number of websites are created using Tom’s single-design genius method (or something very close to it). The Toms of the design world may be talented, but they are often curiously reluctant to use empirical tools to test their designs before the website ships. And the odds of them getting everything right the first time are very low. That translates into a high risk for the organization.
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