Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [132]
There are two methods of building a card-sorting exercise: the open card sort and the closed card sort. With an open card sort, there are no predefined categories or groups. The open card sort is really a free-range activity allowing the most freedom for testers to interpret and group the information without restriction. Testers are asked to group the cards into categories and label those categories.
The closed card sort starts with predefined categories and then asks testers to assign the cards to each category (Figure 12-3). This helps if you have to fit information into a predefined structure. Performing the open card sort will help find the consistencies among testers to build top-level categories, and then the closed card sort can then be used to reinforce or verify those categorizations.
Figure 12-3: Closed card sort using Optimal Sort
The key in the overall card-sorting exercise is organization. Card sort testing provides the ability to understand how customers organize information and match that thinking in your website’s information architecture. However, bear in mind that visitors will rarely ever see your website in this manner. Maybe a site map would reflect this two-dimensional view of the structure, but it is not the typical view of a user. The card sort only provides a formative view of the data from a surface view. It does not take into account the needs of users once they enter the website, nor is it a task-based evaluation of the ability to use the website. Card sorting is mainly for quickly testing the organization of information on the website.
Tree Testing
Although card sorting is more of a high-level informational organization technique, it lacks a task-based level of engagement. This is developed through the tree test. Tree testing gives testers a subject and provides multiple choices as to the most logical place to find that subject.
The tree test is a method of ensuring that your information is findable based on the information labels utilized in your site. By asking participants where they would find specific products, information, or important items, a site owner can quickly discover whether their categorization and labeling scheme works for visitors as well as the organization.
A typical tree test would provide a test question similar to the one in Figure 12-4.
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Figure 12-4: Tree test and results from Tree Jack
By asking the question in a task-based format and providing the typical top-level structure and labels, you can see whether testers are of the same mind-set as the developers in organizing content and understanding the purpose of the keyword labels in the navigation. Also important is the speed at which testers are able to identify and classify the content into the relevant area. Results that show the testers taking too long to decide upon a category signify that the content groupings might be too confusing or too similar, therefore causing hesitation.
As with card sorting, there are many levels of this type of exercise. This can be administered on paper or electronically using a simple web-based test offered. Regardless of cost, medium, or scale of the testing, employing these tests helps you better develop your website and your overall marketing in the language and the perceptions of those who will be depending upon your website to find information. By better understanding both the language and the thinking of the visitor, you can better organize your website and use the correct terminology that your users will understand. Tree testing will also provide guidance and specific data that will enable your ability to make good decisions.
Wednesday: Support Navigation with Information
Navigation typically has two problems. It’s either too little or too much. It can have too little choice, too little information, and too few options. Conversely, many sites overwhelm the visitor with too many choices, too much information, and options that all look the same. This tends to happen when there is more of a corporate-speak approach to building the website.