Tree Testing

[pbest]

Tree Testing

A research study that helps determine if a website's navigation structure (current or proposed) is intuitive

What

A tree test is a research method that asks set of participants to select where in a hierarchal list of pages/titles they would expect to find specific pieces of content based on pre-written tasks. Tree testing is a quantitative way to evaluate how intuitive a website's organization and labeling is; specifically focused on navigation.

Why

Measure twice, cut once! Overall, tree testing helps reduce the risk that you invest design or engineering resources in a information architecture that is not intuitive.

Some simple points on why to run a treetest:

• It’s quick. We can set up, run, and analyze a tree test in a week or less.
• We can test before we have a site or even a prototype
• It focuses on site structures only.
• By testing organization and labeling by themselves, tree testing provides a solid foundation that we can build on later, adding page design, visual design, and search.
• The quantitative data gives us a more objective evaluation of our page titles and labels.

How to do it

1. Create a test plan
2. Define tree(s)
3. Write tasks
4. Set up recruitment parameters
5. Run the test
6. Analyze results (list out the points of analysis)
7. Refine and retest

Format of Output

A heirarchal list that represents the headings and labels of a site's navigation. This list has been established as "good" per the definition of your test plan

Pro-Tips

• Avoid explicitly using the navigation label you want people to find in the task question itself.
• Sometimes it can be helpful to identify 2-3 alternative trees and test concurrently against the original and to identify a winning tree for refinement + retesting
• Look at where / how people answered indirectly. Where were they going back or changing course? What could have lead them astray?

Examples

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sCFF9ZsZt3mBOKDx7B0xO2bWDPOEYh2B653566erHZs/edit?usp=sharing

Time Required

1-2 weeks (add hard costs)

Further Reading

https://treetesting.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TTFW/overview

[SolomonISL]

What is meant by, "2. Define tree"? Can we get more detailed with this? What is meant by, "Set up recruitment parameters”? Can we be more specific? One idea is to add inline examples.