Lyssna now supports Tree testing

Discover how our new tree testing feature can optimize your website or app's information architecture.

Tristan Gamilis

What is tree testing?

When is tree testing useful?

How to get started with Tree testing in Lyssna

Understand user journeys with quantitative and qualitative insights

Ready to get started with tree testing?

We're excited to introduce our newest platform feature: Tree testing! We've listened to your feedback and are thrilled to launch a feature many have requested.

With Tree testing now available in Lyssna, you can run detailed research and usability testing, make sure your website or app's navigation is easy to use, and help your users find what they're looking for.

What is tree testing?

Tree testing is a research method that evaluates a website or app's information architecture (IA). You give participants a simplified version of your site's hierarchy – represented as a tree diagram – and ask them to complete specific tasks by navigating through this structure.

The first step is to define the common tasks users perform on your website or app. You can then present these tasks to participants and ask them to find the correct path to complete each task using the provided navigation structure.

By tracking their interactions, you can identify clear and efficient parts of your navigation, as well as areas that cause confusion or difficulty.

When is tree testing useful?

Tree testing helps you ‌assess how easily people can find information. This early-stage evaluation can uncover potential usability issues and guide choices about content organization and labeling before you invest resources in development.

Here are some of the ways tree testing can help you create user-friendly products:

Initial design stages: Use tree testing to validate and refine initial IA proposals. By experimenting with various navigation structures, you can collect insights and make informed choices about content organization and labeling.
Before launch: Use tree testing to uncover any potential navigation or content organization issues before rolling out a new website or app. This allows you to identify and fix usability issues preemptively.
During redesigns or significant updates: Use tree testing to assess proposed changes to an existing website IA. This helps you make sure that the revised structure improves upon the previous version and makes it easier for people to find the information they need.
Continuous optimization: Integrate tree testing into an iterative process aimed at consistently refining your IA and navigation. Regular testing lets you track the effects of changes and make data-driven decisions to enhance user satisfaction.

Using tree testing with other research methods like card sorting, preference testing, first click testing, and prototype testing can make your research more effective. Each of these methods gives you different information about how users behave and what their preferences are. When you use them together, you can better understand what your users need and expect.

How to get started with Tree testing in Lyssna

You can set up a tree test in minutes with our easy and intuitive UI.

From the Dashboard, click “Create study” and select “Test or survey”, then choose “Tree test”. Alternatively, you can use a tree testing template.
Create your tree manually or import your data from a CSV file. You can download our sample tree CSV file and overwrite it with your own data.
Pick which parent or child node is the correct answer for the task.
Enter your task instructions. Tasks should be clear and straightforward, and engage your participants in realistic situations they may come across on your website or app.
Add your follow-up questions. Asking additional questions can provide valuable information about participants' experiences in the tree test.

To create additional tree test tasks, simply duplicate the section, update the task instructions, and select a new correct answer.

Once your test is ready, you can recruit from your own network or the Lyssna panel.

Our tree testing guide can help you with:

Writing tree testing tasks and follow-up questions.
Figuring out how many tasks to include.
Recruiting the right number of participants.

Understand user journeys with quantitative and qualitative insights

With Lyssna’s analytical tools, you can uncover patterns and trends in how users navigate the tree structure. Explore quantitative usability metrics like:

Success rate: Your success rate will tell you the percentage of respondents who found the correct answer. A high success rate indicates fewer (or no) severe issues.
Directness: This reflects the percentage of users who navigate directly to the correct destination within the tree without backtracking. A high directness percentage signifies a smoother user experience.
Time to completion: Measures the amount of time it takes for participants to successfully navigate through the tree structure and complete a given task.
Common paths: Analyzing the path your participants take helps you identify both patterns and unexpected choices.

In our tree testing guide, we have a chapter on analyzing tree testing results. This includes more information about how to measure if your tree testing was successful.

Another way to gain insights into the experiences and preferences of your participants is by analyzing and tagging the responses you receive to follow-up questions.

Using qualitative and quantitative data together can help you to understand what works and what needs improvement. By combining both types of feedback, you can make recommendations and iterative changes that directly benefit your users.

Ready to get started with tree testing?

You can start using tree testing right away. It's free with all Lyssna plans, even the free plan.

We’ll be enhancing this feature over time, so if you have a suggestion or request, please reach out to us in-app or via email. We always appreciate your feedback!