Maybe you recognize it yourself, you are looking for certain content on a website, but you can’t find it. Frustration plays up and you decide to look further on another website. Unfortunately, there goes the chance of a conversion. The customer is not convinced and may not come back.
The structure of the website is a very important part of both SEO and user experience. You want to offer the customer an optimal visitor experience and that of course includes a clear website structure. But how do you ensure that the structure matches what the visitor expects? You can approach this in two ways and they also fit together well. We are talking about tree testing and card sorting techniques. These forms of usability testing help you to evaluate how well topics can be found on your website.
In our blog we will discuss these two methods that help you to create the right website structure. First, the topic of tree testing is discussed, with this technique the respondents are given an assignment to find a certain topic in the website structure. Then we will discuss the topic of card sorting, this technique is used to investigate how respondents group items of a website.
How do these techniques fit together?
Card sorting is all about creating new ideas for the structure. How can you best organize the content? Tree testing is used to test new ideas. It helps you understand what visitors cannot find on your website. But which of these two do you start with? Actually, you can start with both. For a new website, we recommend starting with card sorting. This allows you to generate ideas and it becomes clear how you can best organize the content. This will result in two to three possible structures, which you can test with tree testing. You can evaluate these tests and eventually merge them into one clear structure.
In contrast, for existing websites, it is best to start whatsapp data with tree testing. This tests the current structure and provides a benchmark for the pain points. You can then decide whether to implement certain adjustments immediately or whether you choose to start with card sorting to set up a new structure.
Test the information architecture with tree testing
As just explained, tree testing is about testing ideas and the current structure. This is done on a simple text version of your website structure, Най-добри практики, ползи и съвети за проследяване на потенциални клиенти so without the influence of navigation and design.
How does tree testing work? Tree testing can be aob directory applied in different ways. We find the easiest way by means of the Treejack tool. Here you have to go through three steps:
1. Entering the website structure
First, you start by filling in the ‘tree’ based on your current website structure. You can do this manually, but also by means of a bulk import.