Card Sorting

1. Card Sorting Alfred Kobsa University of California, Irvine

2. Card sorting Card sorting can be used to understand users’conceptual models of an interface or information structure • Each card shows one concept (which come from user studies or directly from designers) • Participants are asked to order cards hierarchically and to come up with category names (possibly let them think aloud, to capture their rationales) • Performed individually or in a small group. Also over the Internet • Variants: • Category names are pre-defined (closed set or user-extensible) • Freelisting (open sort): users both sort and produce categories • Number of cards: 60-70 maximum (Preece et al.: 90) • Number of studies: start with 5-6, add some more, and stop when there seems convergence in the results. Otherwise add more studies, specifically if there are different user types (no more than 30 total). • Software available (with consolidation across participants)E.g., OptimalSort

3. Physical card sorting

4. Card sorting Card sorting can be used to understand users’conceptual models of an interface or information structure • Each card shows one concept (which come from user studies or directly from designers) • Participants are asked to order cards hierarchically and to come up with category names (possibly let them think aloud, to capture their rationales) • Performed individually or in a small group. Also over the Internet • Variants: • Category names are pre-defined (closed set or user-extensible) • Freelisting (open sort): users both sort and produce categories • Number of cards: 60-70 maximum (Preece et al.: 90) • Number of studies: start with 5-6, add some more, and stop when there seems convergence in the results. Otherwise add more studies, specifically if there are different user types (no more than 30 total). • Software available (with consolidation across participants)E.g., OptimalSort

5. Result: Similarity matrix

6. Result: “Dendrogram”

7. Result: “Dendrogram”

8. OptimalSort Participant-Centric Analysis