Aaron Stites

Summary

In this article, I explain:

• The 2 different types of card sorts (open and closed)
• When to use card sorts
• How to execute card sorts
• What you should learn from a card sort
• Next steps after a card sort

Types of Card Sorts

Open Card Sorts

Open card sorts are conducted by providing a set of physical or digital cards with no given categories in order to understand how people arrange the cards and what they name the categories.

Closed Card Sorts

Closed card sorts are conducted by providing a set of physical or digital cards with given categories in order to understand how people arrange the cards based on the categories provided.

When to use card sorts

Card sorts tend to fit into the early stages of Designing in the Information Architecture for an app or a website. Generally used in shaping and testing an Information Architecture, card sorts are typically most helpful in structural design which lead to shaping the interaction design. A design should not be shipped based solely on a card sort. However, a team/designer ought to have more confidence in proceeding to the next phases of design work to deliver an excellent user experience. The next phases would typically be some combination of interaction and visual design what should be evaluated via some sort of usability testing prior to shipping the design.

Open Card Sorts

Open card sorts are used early in shaping the structure of a system whether it be a website, an app, or something else. Open card sorts are less leading than closed card sorts due to the fact that you are simply providing items to organize without providing categories. The open nature of this method makes it ideal for shaping the structure in a way that makes sense to users, therefore it is more generative in nature than evaluative.

Closed Card Sorts

Where open card sorts are more generative, closed card sorts are more evaluative in nature. Once an open sort has been conducted and analyzed, you ought to have 1 or more structural designs (IA) that you believe will best serve your users. It is generally best for a closed card sort to follow an open card sort.

Overall, card sorts are sort of in the middle of a design process, depending on your view of when the design process begins. I view it as in the middle because you ought to have discovered opportunities and evaluated potential solutions prior to shaping the structure of the chosen solution. Depending on the scope of the project, a card sort may not be necessary. However, if you are working with a navigation space for an app, website, or even some portions of a website such as a blog or account management space, a card sort will help you put things in place where your users can find it. Card sorts ought to be conducted prior to interaction or interface design proceed to save headaches in that space.

How to conduct card sorts

There are several tools that offer the ability to conduct remote card sorts available. Optimal Workshop has historically been my preferred tool of choice, primarily for its reporting of results compared to other tools. Other tools that I have used to conduct card sorts are Alchemer which is a survey tool that has the ability to do card sorts in a survey and Lyssna which is a usability platform which offers card sorting as one the methods you can use for testing.

As with any other research project there are a few questions to ask the person requesting research before designing the questions/inquiry focus for your project.

• What do you hope to learn?
• Who do we need to ask to help us learn what you hope to learn?
• What do you already know about the problem/opportunity space?
• What do you expect to do with what you learn?

Open Card Sorts

Once you have decided that an open card sort is the proper method to learn, follow the steps below to setup your test. This may look slightly different based on the tool you are using but should be pretty similar.

• Gather the content for the cards you would like participants to sort
  • This could be blog posts, features in an app, products you sell, etc
• Place the cards in a pile (physical cards) or usually a column (digital cards)
• Provide your participants with enough context to orient them around the cards but not enough to bias the results.
  • Ex. The current column of cards is comprised of items we sell in our store.
• Provide clear, concise instructions to complete the tasks for the card sort
  • Ex. Arrange the cards to the left into groups containing items that appear similar to you. Once you have settled on the groupings that make sense to you, name each grouping based on the content of each group. Once you have created and named your groupings, click “Done” to finish the exercise.

Closed Card Sorts

Once you have decided that an closed card sort is the proper method to learn, follow the steps below to setup your test. This may look slightly different based on the tool you are using but should be pretty similar.

• Gather the content for the cards you would like participants to sort
  • This could be blog posts, features in an app, products you sell, etc
• Place the cards in a pile (physical cards) or usually a column (digital cards)
• Provide your participants with enough context to orient them around the cards but not enough to bias the results.
  • Ex. The current column of cards is comprised of items we sell in our store.
• Provide clear, concise instructions to complete the tasks for the card sort
  • Ex. Arrange the cards to the left into the pre-names groups that each card belongs in. Once you have arranged the cards in a way that makes the most sense to you, click “Done” to finish the exercise.

Note: It is typically best to limit the cards for a card sort whether open or closed to 30-50 items whenever possible to reduce the cognitive burden of your participants.

What you learn from a card sort

Both open and closed card sorts will result in cards grouped in some sort of order from different participants. A similarity matrix and/or a dendrogram are useful analysis tools to help you understand the results of your test.

Typically the results of an open card sort will inform an early prototype for the Information Architecture of your website or app while a closed card sort will test an Information Architecture that currently exists whether user facing or in a design you are shaping.

Essentially, an open card short should inform your Information Architecture while a closed card sort is best used to evaluate a Information Architecture.

Conclusion

Card sorts are a valuable tool for shaping and testing the structure of an app or website and should generally happen as-needed early in the design process. Once the structural design/Information Architecture of a system has been evaluated and makes sense to users, you are ready to proceed to the Interaction and/or Visual Design of your solution. A solution is not ready to be shipped once a card sort has been completed. Further usability testing should be conducted as you move through the design process.