How do I interpret the Pietree in Tree Testing?

In this help, we'll discuss how to use the Pietree analysis to:

  • Scope out Pietrees to explore traversal of your tree

Scope out Pietrees to explore traversal of your tree 

Pietree is a diagram that serves up a big picture of how respondents traversed a tree. You get one Pietree for each task. To swap between tasks, use the dropdown list found in the top section of the Pietree page. For each node in the tree, the Pietree provides information on how many interaction happened there and what sort of decision the respondents made once there (taking a correct path, taking an incorrect path, backtracking, etc.)

Pietree has the same structure as the tree in your Tree Testing, with its nodes representing the nodes of your tree. The only difference is that it contains only the nodes that the respondents interacted with in some way during the task. All irrelevant nodes are missing from the Pietree to improve its clarity.

Each node in the Pietree is represented by a pie diagram. The pie diagram portays the ratio of different types of actions that the respondents took while on said node. The types of actions are as follows:

  •     Correct path - the respondent went in a right direction.
  •     Incorrect path - the respondent went in a wrong direction.
  •     Loop - the respondent interacted with the node again (closed or opened it again). A sign of hesitation.
  •     Backtracking - the respondent went back. A sign the respondent didn't find what they were originally looking for.
  •     Nominated - the respondent nominated this node as the right answer.
  •     Skip - the respondent skipped the task while on this node.

You can click a node to see exactly how many times each type of action was taken there. These numbers can be higher than the number of respondents, as each respondent could have visited each node multiple times. The size of the nodes also varies depending on how many actions were taken there. Barely visited nodes are small while nodes with many interactions are the largest.

Starting from the root node, nodes are connected to their children by lines. These lines vary in width depending on the number of actions counted within the subtrees that they lead to. Subtrees with the highest number of actions are connected to the root by the thickest lines.

The correct paths within the tree are marked by green lines. The nodes located on correct paths are also surrounded by green circles. The circle around the root node is dark green.

You can switch Pietree between Vertical mode (root on top, children go downward) and Horizontal mode (root on the left, children go right). For easier analysis, especially with bigger more complex Pietrees, use the Fullscreen mode.