This document discusses different methods for testing usability and content, including navigation tests like scavenger hunts and card sorting, content tests to evaluate if users can find, understand, and act on information, and combining quantitative and qualitative data. It emphasizes the importance of testing not just finding information but how it works for people. Contact information is provided at the end.

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Usability Testing Content &
Information Architecture
Elizabeth Snowdon
User Experience Consultant
elizabeth@elizabethsnowdon.ca

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Usability Testing
“Too many usability tests focus only on
finding information—not on how the
information itself works for people.”
Ginny Redish

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Evaluating Navigation / IA
n Scavenger hunt
n Task success
n Card sorting
n Reverse card sorting

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Card sorting

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Online card sorting

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Testing your IA
Reverse card sorting

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Reverse card sorting

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Treejack (online testing of IA)

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Content Usability
Can users
n Find & read the content they need?
n Understand the content?
n Act on the content?

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Why test content?
“Perhaps the greatest value of testing
content is that it lets you gather more
qualitative data to complement your
quantitative data such as analytics. It is
difficult, if not impossible, to measure the
effectiveness of content using quantitative
data alone.”
Coleen Jones

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Triangulating data about content
Source: Colleen Jones

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Testing Types
example: Transit pass
n Navigation
n Where would you go to buy a monthly pass?
n User Interface
n Can you purchase a monthly pass?
n Content
n Can you purchase the lowest cost pass that suits your needs?

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Questions & Contact Info
n elizabeth@elizabethsnowdon.ca
n Web: elizabethsnowdon.ca
n LinkedIn
n Twitter: @elizSnowdon