When setting up paths on goal-based prototype tests, the last screen of the path shouldn’t be reused on the same path or on another path in the same block.
When the last screen of a path is reused in a path, you’ll get a message to remove the screen from the path or change your last screen:
Invalid path
This path cannot contain the end screen from another path. Please remove the highlighted screens from the path, or change the last screen.
Background
Setting up paths allows you to get success metrics. Reusing the last screen would severely skew these metrics.
A goal-based mission is complete once a user reaches the last screen of a path. If the last screen is used again, it’d be considered an indirect success because the participant reached the last screen even though they didn’t reach the end of the path.
In other words, if your path is A → B → C, the mission will be complete once the user reaches C.
Now, if you would set the path as A → B → C → B, the mission will stop as soon as the tester reaches the first “B” screen.
Here, testers would reach the end screen on the second step of this flow rather than the fourth and final step. This would mark the test as complete with an indirect success result because the tester reached the end screen but not by the set path.
Solution
You should make sure the last screen isn’t included in any path.
If you get an “Invalid path” message, here’s what you should do:
- Remove the highlighted screens from the invalid path
- Change the last screen of one of the paths
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