A tree test is a method where users are asked to find something in an IA (usually for websites or software) and their path is recorded. Tree tests can be done with index cards, or with online tools (like PlainFrame and Treejack). The benefit of using online tools is that you can send the test to many people, quickly and easily. You can send a link in an email to a bunch of people, sit back and collect responses. The benefit of in-person tree tests is that you can ask follow-up questions and it can be tacked on to something else you are already doing (like an in-person interview). Currently, both online solutions available do not offer the ability to ask why a user picked a particular path.

PlainFrame

PlainFrame, which came out of beta on January 11, 2011, is the newest online tool to conduct tree tests from the same company that does the online card sorting tool WebSort. PlainFrame is the most affordable solution to conduct tree tests. Here’s an example of how a task looks on PlainFrame.

Unfortunately, PlainFrame still is new and has some issues (like the task being cut-off on the top).

PlainFrame allows you to have either a vertical or horizontal-style menu. You can also have menus in the header (upper right) and the footer (bottom middle).  You can customize the tree test with a logo. Results are collected by simply sharing a link with the people you want to collect results from. The results are presented in a simple format, without graphs. But, you can easily export to Excel where you can generate any graphs you need.

TreeJack

The first-to-market online tree test solution was TreeJack, from Optimal Workshop. Here’s an example of how a task looks on TreeJack:

TreeJack looks less like an actual navigation, but should be just as effective.

TreeJack allows you to customize your tree test’s look and feel beyond adding a logo. Like PlainFrame, you send a link out to collect results. Unlike PlainFrame, TreeJack has a dashboard which shows useful visualizations about the data you have collected. Even the exported Excel results are formatted nicely.

Summary

Tree testing is still a relatively new method to refine information architectures. Tree tests can either be conducted in-person or online with either PlainFrame or TreeJack. TreeJack is the more expensive tool, but has two main benefits: it is highly customizable, and it has useful reporting features.

Part one of the guide to eCommerce, talks about factors of how to present and organize your products to gain the highest results.

Product Categories

The way that you categorize your products has a major impact as to how well a user will understand your product offerings and know where to find what they are looking for.  Something to think about when categorizing your products is to remember that everyone searches differently.  Having multiple ways to navigate to the same product is important. This is known as “redundant navigation.”

For example, someone looking for an office desk may search by “Office Desk”, “Office Furniture”, “Cherry Desk”, or “Glass Desk”.  No matter how that user searches, you want the ability for that user to find what they are looking for within your site navigation.  The example shown illustrates how you can access the same product or group of products either “By Design”, “By Style”, or “By Finish”.

By using multiple navigation points, sites that do not offer many products, can seem more comprehensive.

Search/Sort Functionality

For ready-to-buy shoppers, there is a good possibility that they already know which product or model they want to buy.  For these buyers, it may be easier to enter the model # or product name into a search box that will check the entire site.  For example, if a user wants to purchase a Sony Cybershot camera, they may enter “Cybershot” or even “Cybershot DSC-W220″ to quickly find what they are looking for.

So what about the user that knows they want a camera, however they are not sure exactly what brand or type of camera they want?  That user will either search the broad term “camera” or “digital camera” or they will search using your navigation.  For this type of search, it is important to have multiple ways to sort the results of that broad category.  For example, some users may have a certain price range they are looking to stay in, some may be looking for a specific brand, or others may be looking for product capabilities.  Using a “Sort By” function, will help the user further refine their search quickly and determine which product is right for them.

Product Photos

Because users cannot physically touch the product when purchasing online, it is essential you give them the tools they need to picture what it would be like to have the product in their hands.

The most important aspect to displaying products on your site is to have high-quality photos.  Especially for luxury products or products that have a lot of detail, high-quality jpegs will help a user visualize what the product would look like.

A zoom in feature is another easy way for a user to see greater detail of the product.

Not only will professional product photos help increase sales, but if you decide to create a printable catalog, you can reuse the same photos.

Photo enhancements and zoom in photo features can go beyond just products. The same enhancements can be applied to multiple industries and product types. For example, in the real estate market a great tool for showcasing homes are 360 views and virtual tours. If the product you are selling is too big for a photo or could be better explained using 360 views or video, this can be a great way to tell the story of your product…whatever that may be.

Product Descriptions

Having a good product description can make or break a sale.  Most websites will just cut and paste the product description from the manufacturer.  However there are a number of reasons why you should have a unique product description.

• SEO Benefits:  Search engines love unique content, so it makes sense that if every other website uses the same content to describe a product, that the one that is unique, will stand out.  If you take the time to write a description that varies from the manufacturers, search engines can see that and will reward you for it.
• Conversion Benefits:  If the end-user reads a description that is well thought-out and highlights the benefits of the product, a user is more inclined to purchase the product.

Check your Robots.txt file: The problem may be as simple as your robots.txt file is disallowing search engines from crawling your site.  Type websiteurl.com/robots.txt to see if you are currently disallowing search engines.  If you see something like this …

you are actually telling search engines not to index your site.  By simply removing the ” / ” you will allow search engines to start indexing your site. The ” / ” is representative of your site’s root path. So that essentially means that you are telling search engines when they visit http://www.yourcompany.com to NOT index your site.

You may also be restricting search engines in your source code.  Go to ‘View’ in your web browser and view the ‘Page Source’ or CTRL+U.  Do a “Find” for <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">.  If you see "NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW", as you can imagine it tells search engines not to index or follow the page.  Simply remove that piece of code, to allow it to be indexed.  Be sure to check all pages in question, since this code may be on some or all of your pages.

Check your Site Structure: For large websites you may have a lot of directories in your site.  If your directories go 3, 4, or even 5 directories deep off the root level, it may be hard for search engines to crawl those inner pages.  Try keeping your directories as close to the root directory as possible.

Check your Site Navigation: Your website navigation may not be search engine friendly, meaning search engines are unable to follow the interior pages through your navigation.  If your navigation is developed using flash or programmed in javascript, it may inhibit search engines to access your interior pages.  To fix this issue, have your navigation programmed using a href links.  If you do not want to re-program your navigation, try adding footer text links at the bottom of each page.  This will give the search engines a second way of accessing your interior pages.

Check your CMS: If you are pulling in content dynamically through a CMS or some sort of database, search engines may have a problem indexing your content. Here is an example of the differences between dynamic and static urls.

Dynamic URL

http://www.websiteurl.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date

Search Friendly Static URL

http://www.websiteurl.com/forums/indexing-issues.html

The problem with dynamic URLs, is that these URLs do not exist.  They pull in content on the fly, based on what the user requests.  If the URLs do not exist, search engines will not be able to find these pages and index them.  In order to fix this URL issue, use a URL re-writer to modify the URL so it creates static looking pages from dynamic pages.  This will give the impression to search engines that these are static pages.  It will also help with SEO, if you use keyword-rich URLs.  For some CMS’s, it may be hard to find a URL re-writer off the shelf.  Almost all of the mainstream CMS’s like Drupal and Wildflower all have URL re-writers you can use.

Google Website Penalty: I recently wrote a post on how to detect when Google penalizes your website.  If you notice that your site is not being crawled by search engines, it could possibly be that search engines have banned or penalized your website and they are not adding your site to their index.