Primetime for tree testing is early in the design phase, once we’ve done enough research to feel we have a good handle on our audiences, their background, and their needs.

We start creating drafts of new site structures immediately after we finish a content audit – that is, after we decide which content we will be adding, updating, or deleting. While content is always a moving target, it really helps to have most of it identified and locked in before trying to design a structure for it.

This work on content and structure can be done in parallel with conceptual design, but usually comes before more detailed work such as page layouts, fine-grained interactions, and visual design.

In the design phase, we can increase the quality of our site tree by doing two critical things:

• Going wide (testing several alternative trees at the start)
• Going deep (testing and revising down to a single tree that performs well)

Next: Putting it all together