Tree Testing

Tree testing is an information architecture testing method that’s used to assess the findability of resources and navigability of your product. It consists of asking users to find specific content in an existing navigation system. The goal is to identify mismatches between the system’s navigation set-up and user mental models and expectations.

Tree testing is also known as reverse card sorting. Where card sorting asks users to organize content into categories, tree testing asks them to find content in existing categories. They’re two sides of the same coin.