...

Whether our tree-testing plan is simple or more complex, we do recommend to:

• Collaborate Collaborating with the team on it, so everyone’s in the loop (and can be involved as they want to be)
  
  
• Write Writing it down and share sharing it, so that everyone can keep updated as the project moves along (and sometimes changes as it goes). We typically use a project spreadsheet that we fill in as we go, shared in real-time using Google Drive, but the exact tools used matter less than the fact that it’s documented and “lived in” by the team.
  
  
• Reuse Reusing it next time, adding or deleted steps as we go, until we get a process that is tailored to our situation.
  
  
  

Here’s a typical high-level plan for 3 rounds of tree testing (testing the existing tree, testing our new trees, then testing our even-better-with-revisions “final” tree).

If we’re just planning 1 or 2 rounds of testing, it should be easy to take this and cut it down to what is needed.

•  like in “Observing the UX”.
•  show TT project schedule (see Google Drive). Just the high level here, then break it down in subsequent chapters.
•  include “planning questions” template?

A sample project checklist

Over the course of hundreds of tree tests, we've refined our work down to a detailed checklist of everything we do in a tree-testing project.

Note that this is a superset of everything that might apply; we normally start from this template and delete the items that don't apply to a specific project.

Note also that this is a very detailed checklist, with lots of items that may not make sense yet. Not to worry - they will explained in the subsequent chapters of this guide.

...

Next: Chapter 4 - key points

...