Redirecting after the test

Some tree-testing tools let us send the participant somewhere after they've finished our tree test. That "somewhere" is a URL that we can supply when we set up the test.

There are a few common reasons for setting up a "redirection" URL:

• Rewarding commercial-panel participants
  If we're using a commercial research panel, we need to send the participant back there when they've completed our test, so the panel knows they've done the study and can then reward them. The research panel should supply us a URL to use along with a participant identifier.

• Chaining several studies together
  We may want our participants to do more than one study for us. For example, we may want them to do a tree test and a survey, or perhaps (especially in the first round of IA research) a tree test of the old site and an open card sort to generate ideas for the new site. By supplying a URL to the second study, we can take them directly to the next study.
  Note that we don't recommend chaining two tree tests together (for example, to test alternate trees) unless we have a way to mix up the order of the tests (to avoid bias and the learning effect).

• Recruiting participants for further studies
  We can also use an unmoderated online study (such as a tree test) to help us recruit for follow-on studies. In her article Two great online recruiting techniques, Lisa Fast describes how her team ran an online tree test, then linked to a "tell us more about yourself" survey that helped them recruit participants for a subsequent in-depth moderated study.

Next: Setting up the tree and tasks