Card sorting: the business benefits
Our card sorting techniques will identify navigation problems with your web site or intranet and show you how to fix them.
What is card sorting?
Card sorting is a knowledge elicitation technique used to establish or assess the navigation hierarchy of a web site. The process involves asking participants to sort items into meaningful groups. The "items" are typically menu entries or hyperlinks while the "groups" are categories or headings.
Why do card sorting?
Do you find yourself asking these questions about your web site or intranet?
- How do our users expect the information to be organised and categorised?
- What terminology and labels do they find confusing and what better terms can we use?
If so, you need to uncover your users' mental model of the information. This is what we achieve with card sorting.
When should I do card sorting?
You can do card sorting anytime. If you do it early in the design process you can build the findings into wireframes and design concepts. If you do it late in development you can assess the existing navigation framework against users' ideal.
Our approach to card sorting
- Participants take randomly ordered cards representing pages of a web site and group the cards as they see fit. We generally test 15 participants.
- We then carry out a cluster analysis of the results to develop tree diagrams that can be directly transformed to provide the information structure of the web site.
- Finally, we write a concise report describing the findings and the new proposed navigation structure.
What does it cost?
Prices start from £2,850.
What should I do next?
- Read about our other usability consultancy services.
- Complete the form below and one of our consultants will contact you within 24hrs to discuss your situation.
Card sorting in practice
“I’m very pleased with the results from the card sort – I think the recommended wireframe is a huge improvement on what we currently have.”
– Intranet Manager, Private Sector Organisation.