Tree Testing for Websites
"What is tree testing?"
"How does it improve my website?"
"How do I run a good tree test?"
This is a community guide to the "tree test" method - a quick, quantitative way to make things easier to find on your website.
If you're just getting started, this guide offers step-by-step instructions for running a good tree test and analyzing the results.
If you have previously run tree tests, you'll find tips on how to run more advanced (and more effective) tests, and solutions to the most common mistakes that people make.
If you have additional tree-testing wisdom to share, become a contributor to this guide!
(Best viewed on desktop, because navigation on mobile is broken for Confluence wikis.)
1 - Getting our users unlost
2 - Tree testing - a quick intro
3 - IA in the design process
4 - Planning a tree test
5 - Creating trees
- Basing new trees on research
- Common schemes to organize sites
- Combining and flipping schemes
- Wide/shallow vs. narrow/deep
- Labelling and terminology
- Team-sourcing ideas
- Roughing out alternative trees
- Picking candidate trees to test
- Posing questions about tree elements
- More on creating trees
- Chapter 5 - key points
6 - Preparing a tree for testing
- Working in an electronic format
- Which part of the tree?
- Which headings to include/exclude?
- Spotting missing content
- Dealing with shortcuts and duplicated content
- Breaking up double-level topics
- Using link names instead of page titles
- What to call “Home”
- Transferring the tree to a testing app
- Chapter 6 - key points
7 - Writing tasks
- Which tasks to include?
- How many tasks?
- Mapping tasks to the tree
- Different tasks for different user groups
- Collaborating on tasks
- Writing a good task
- Identifying correct answers
- Entering tasks and their answers
- Randomizing the order of tasks
- Letting participants skip tasks
- Asking questions after a task
- Chapter 7 - key points
8 - Setting up a test
- Naming the test
- Disguising the test address
- Selecting languages
- Password-protecting the test
- Setting closing rules
- Redirecting after the test
- Setting up the tree and tasks
- Writing supporting text
- Adding survey questions
- Choosing a visual look
- Providing a support contact
- Alerting the organization about our study
- Chapter 8 - key points
Copyright © 2024 Dave O'Brien
This guide is covered by a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.