Cardsorting Basics

Monday, August 14. 2006

We've been doing a lot of cardsorting recently for various projects. It would be nice to recap on the basics as outlined by Mr. Gerry McGovern.

His orginal article is also worth reading.

A 13-step approach to card sorting

Write out all the classification terms gathered during the situation analysis on cards.
Ask readers, authors and representatives of management, to go through these cards, choosing what they feel are the relevant classifications. Try to get 10-30 people to do this.
It better for people to go through these cards quickly, rather than thinking over them for a long time.
Ask them to choose the top 10-15 classifications that they would want to see at a top level.
Ask them to prioritize this list based on the most important getting the highest mark and so on. Let's say that someone chooses 10 classifications. They would then give a mark of 10 to their first choice, 9 to their second choice, and so on.
Create a spreadsheet with all the classifications listed in alphabetical order.
Create a print-out of this spreadsheet, with a box beside each classification. Give a copy to everyone carrying out the card sorting. Ask people to place their marks in the relevant boxes.
Create another spreadsheet with all the classifications listed in alphabetical order. Create a column for everyone who is carrying out the card sorting.
Place the relevant score in the appropriate column for each participant.
Create a total column at the end, which will give a total mark for each classification.
When all the respective marks of the participants have been entered, sort your spreadsheet based on the total column, highest mark first.
What you will get is a list showing the classifications that have received the highest total marks from all the participants.
This classification list and how it is prioritized becomes a very valuable input into what your top-level classifications should be and how they should be ordered.

Posted by Nam-ho Park in Information Architecture, Usability at 11:11 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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