Activities (Website to be Tested)

Attachment CDC Taxonomy: Testing Plan

Goals of the Usability Test:

The primary goal of the taxonomy project is to modernize taxonomy-related infrastructure that ultimately enables the use dynamic page renderings and reduces manual content curation.  
The research goals are to better understand our users needs so that we can: 

1. Create taxonomy tools that are easily understandable. 

2. Comprehensively reflect the breadth of CDC content, and accurately tag it. 

3. Better encourage/ incentivize the adoption of the new taxonomy system 

4. Improve the efficiency of taxonomy-related interactions between developers and health communicators 

Website to be tested

• https://www.cdc.gov/

Participants

• Participation in this usability test is voluntary. Participants will be selected from lists of CDC contacts including states and partners to CDC programs and include Healthcare Providers (nurses, clinicians, etc.,) Public Health Professionals, and members of the General Public.

In-person/Remote

• Participants will remotely access a web-based testing tool while answering questions and completing activities on CDC websites.

Devices

• During testing, the participants will use their desktop computer and an internet connection to access the web-based testing tool.

Instructions

• Instructions will be included in the web-based testing tool. (see Attachment D: Instructions)

Consent Form

• Remote participants digitally sign the consent form (see Attachment E: Content Form) before the session begins.

Sessions

Each session will last no more than 15 minutes. During the session, participants will:

• Be asked to sign the consent form.

• Be provided instructions.

• Be asked to provide responses to the Tree Test activities and Card Sort activities.

• Complete Tree Test activities (i.e. clicking selections from a list of answer choices.)

Tree Test and Card Sort Activities/Follow up Questions

Participants will be asked to do either Tree Test and/or Card Sort activities to complete and follow up questions will be provided to the participants in the web-based testing tool.

• Tree testing evaluates a content hierarchy according to how it performs in a real-world scenario. It enables the exploration and refinement of the categories and labels used for a set of content. In a tree testing session, participants select locations within a hierarchal structure where they feel that specific tasks can be completed.

• Card sorting is a method used to help design or evaluate the information architecture (organization) of a website. In a card sorting session, participants organize topics into categories that make sense to them and they label the groups. Understanding how participants group public health topics provides valuable information on evaluating the structure of the CDC website and ensures the best labels and navigation so visitors can find what they are looking for.

Half the participants will do Tree Test activities and half will do Card Sort activities. S cenarios may be presented to users in random order in order to avoid learning biases.

As each scenario is provided to the participant, the participant will try to complete the scenario by using either the Tree Test or Card Sort answer choices on the website.

After the activity is complete, the participant may be asked a few follow up questions.

(See Attachment F: Activities/Follow up questions for list of Tree Test and Card Sort activities and follow up questions)

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