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The results are revealing – the topic-based tree performs much better, except for a few tasks where the audience-based tree wins:
| Metric | Topic tree | Audience tree |
|---|---|---|
| Success rate | 72% | 55% |
| Directness | 77% | 64% |
| Average speed | 14 secs | 18 secs |
Maria reviews the results of the test with the team, and they agree to go with the second tree, but incorporating some elements of the first 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.
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"Great feedback from users, and traffic has jumped too. The committee was happy to give us the go-ahead for the exciting stuff in release 2." - site owner
The moral of our story
Lest you think 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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