Tree testing

How it is used

Often described as card sorting in reverse: card sorting helps build a structure, tree testing checks it. Participants get tasks like 'Where would you find the return policy?', and results show success rates and wrong paths.

Example sentences

1. Tree testing showed that 70% of people looked for invoices under 'Account', not 'Billing'.

2. Let's do tree testing on the new menu before we design any screens.

Common collocations

• run tree testing
• tree test task
• tree testing results
• reverse card sort

Related terms

• card sortingA research method in which participants group topics written on cards into categories that make sense to them, showing how users expect content to be organised.
• information architectureThe way content and features in a website or app are organised, grouped and labelled so that people can find what they need and understand where they are.
• navigationThe menus, links, tabs and other elements that let people move around a website or app and understand where they are.
• sitemapA diagram that shows all the main pages or screens of a website or app and how they are grouped and connected, usually drawn as a tree.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• tree testing · Software Engineering

More terms: Information Architecture and Navigation

• user flow
• breadcrumb