A findability test measures the distance between your information architecture and your customer's mental model. It is the cheapest test on this list and the easiest to invalidate by phrasing.
What to put in the public brief
- That it is a short set of hunting tasks on a website
- Desktop or mobile
- That a screen recording is required
- Roughly how long
- Whether any prior familiarity disqualifies them
Keep the URL and the task wording private, because the wording is the instrument.
What to put in the private instructions
Write each task as a situation, never as a label
"You want to know if it ships to Ireland before you buy" rather than "find the shipping information page".
Say whether site search is allowed
Both are valid tests and they answer different questions. Not saying is how you end up with a mixed result you cannot interpret.
Ask them to say where they expected it to be
Before they start hunting. The guess is more useful than the search, because it tells you the label they would have looked for.
Cap it at four tasks
And put the one you care most about second. First is warm-up, last is fatigue.
Proof worth requiring
Ask for
The recording, whether each task succeeded, the route taken, and their expected location before starting.
Do not ask for
A satisfaction rating. Someone who eventually found it will rate it fine, and the three wrong turns on the way are the entire finding.
When this task type is the wrong tool
If people cannot tell what your site is for at all, findability is the wrong layer — a first-impression test comes first.
If the content genuinely does not exist, no navigation test will say so kindly. Check that the answer is on the site before paying six people to look for it.