Card Sorting

Card Sorting is a technique for exploring how people group items, so that you can develop structures that maximize the probability of users being able to find items.



It enables

• easy and cheap to conduct
  
• Enables you to understand how 'real people' are likely to group items
  
• Identifies items that are likely to be difficult to categorize and find
  
• Identifies terminology that is likely to be misunderstoo
  

Card Sorting can be conducted in a variety of circumstances using various means - one-on-one, during workshops, by mail, or electronically. The following is the basic process.

You can use cluster analysis to get a pictorial representation of the resultant groupings. An easy way to do this is using IBM's EZSort program

People vary widely in the amount of time they take to sort cards. As a rule of thumb, allow half-an-hour for a participant to sort 50 items.

At times,it may vary considerably for different user groups. Does not take into consideration the user tasks. Participants may just sort it according to surface characteristics.

For existing site - closed card sorting
For new sites - Open card sorting

Preferred for small sites with simple and homogenous content


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