Tree testing: improve the information architecture of your website and apps.

Tree testing helps you understand where users will look for each content, so you can design more intuitive and easy-to-navigate menus.

What is tree testing?

Tree testing is a UX research tool used to improve the navigation structure of a website or app. Users are presented with a simplified navigation menu in the form of a tree and are asked to perform a set of tasks to find the correct location for each piece of information within it. The results help identify improvements in information architecture.

Why to conduct tree testing?

Content tree testing has multiple uses and benefits:

• Evaluate the usability of your navigation. Understand if users can quickly find the right information through your navigation menus.
• Validate your new information architecture. Perform a tree test before making significant changes to the information architecture and ensure success with real users.
• Identify accessibility issues. Discover any problems in the information hierarchy that make it difficult for users to find the information they need.
• Compare alternative designs. Conduct A/B testing of your new designs and choose the optimal navigation system for your users.
• Make data-driven decisions. Put an end to internal debates about the suitability of the navigation structure. Provide objective data and make decisions quickly based on it.
• Optimize conversion. Ensure that users can easily find what they are looking for in the menu of your online store and increase your revenue.
• Improve the online experience. Use tree testing along with other usability tests to improve your customers’ digital experience.
• Engage your users. Turn your users into key players in the product’s evolution and enhance their satisfaction and sense of product ownership.

Difference between tree testing and card sorting

Card sorting and tree testing are two complementary usability tests specialised in content architecture. While card sorting asks users to intuitively organize content from scratch using cards, tree testing asks them to validate an already defined architecture. Card sorting is used more in the exploratory phase when you want to understand how users organise content, whereas tree testing is used in a more advanced phase where there is already a prototype content organisation that needs validation.

Tree testing with We are testers?

At We are testers, we can perform tree teesting as part of our usability testing toolkit. All of our usability tests can be combined to optimize any digital interface. Our platform allows you to conduct tree testing online easily,and includes everything you need to design and control the tasks you want your users to perform. We are testers includes its own web tracking system and task monitoring with control of checkpoints for click events, scrolling, or page views. If you need them, we can provide you with users from our panel, all of them engaged and able to add maximum value even when requested to perform high complexity tasks. In terms of moderation, you can choose to moderate yourself or let a UX research expert from our team to do it for you.

Contact us now to discover more details about tree testing and it can help you with the usability of your web and apps.