When first creating a site tree, we usually play with various kinds of top-level groups, using some of the variations described in Common schemes to organize sites earlier in this chapter.

Combining schemes

A very common tactic is to combine some of these schemes as first- and second-level headings. For example, we may use audiences as our primary navigation, then topics within each of the audience sections:

For parents

For parents
	Primary schooling
	Secondary schooling
	Post-secondary
For teachers
	Primary schooling
	Secondary schooling
	Post-secondary

We may then decide to try replacing topics with, say, activities:

For teachers
For parents
	Choosing a school
	School transport
	Home schooling
	National curriculum
	Training & upskilling
	Employment & pay

Flipping schemes

Another common tactic is to flip the primary and secondary navigation, to see if it fits the content better.

For example, the audience/topic tree that we tried earlier…

For parents

For parents
	Primary schooling
	Secondary schooling
	Post-secondary
For teachers
	Primary schooling
	Secondary schooling
	Post-secondary

…could be flipped to become an topic/audience tree:

Primary schools

Primary schools
	For parents
	For teachers
	For administrators
Secondary schools
	For parents
	For teachers
	For administrators

We may do the flip, think about it, and decide that it won’t work for our purposes (perhaps the content doesn’t fit as well, or we’re sure that it will be confusing for users).

But, if it looks reasonable, and we’re not sure how well it will work with users, it’s probably worth testing both versions in side-by-side tree tests.

Next: Wide/shallow vs. narrow/deep

Tree Testing for Websites

Combining and flipping schemes

Combining schemes

Flipping schemes