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This is our first #HowIUseIt style article. This series looks at how members of the Catalyst Network or re-purpose standard tools to support organisations.<\/p>\n
User researchers typically use card sorting to help plan information architecture (website structure, or how your menus or filters work) <\/p>\n
The activity works like this:<\/p>\n
The sorting step can be open or closed.<\/p>\n
Open: <\/strong>The people sorting decide on the groups, and once they have finished sorting cards name the groups. This is common very early on in a research process.<\/p>\n Closed: <\/strong>You provide a short set of group headings and ask people to sort within those headings. This is useful when your in house team has an idea of a draft structure. <\/p>\n You can run card sorting as a quantitative exercise with a focus on the end placement of the cards as the main research goal. You can also run it more slowly with a focus on asking people to talk out loud whilst they are sorting.<\/p>\n Different tools sort different situations and goals:<\/p>\n If you use a specialist tool it will also provide you with a statistical analysis of the most common groupings. You can also do this yourself by documenting card placement in a spreadsheet.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been using card sorting since I first started doing user research at Neontribe in 2015. In its common form, focusing on information architecture, I think it is really hard to get right.<\/p>\n But I still love card sorting. I think it\u2019s a really useful tool for all charities to use when they are working on improving their website content. I use it for insights that are relevant to the page titles and their content, not just menu structure.<\/p>\n Here are my top 3 ways to make it work for you. I\u2019ve used these on several projects with organisations of different sizes.<\/p>\n Do card sorting as an activity with a user researcher present. This could be part of a face to face or online interview or testing session. It can be a closed or open sort. <\/p>\n For your cards, use existing in house topic categories or page titles OR use new draft titles OR mix and match. <\/p>\n Emphasise that you\u2019d like to know the participants\u2019 thinking as they sort the cards. This will help you understand some key things about your content design:<\/p>\n You can do this even if you are running an \u201copen\u201d sort where the participants label their own categories. It helps give people permission to be unsure.<\/p>\n This will help you:<\/p>\n Card sorts usually look at menu structure. But you can change them to give a sense of what topics are most important to people.<\/p>\n Create a closed card sort using any method.<\/p>\n Create topic\/title cards covering the range of topics that you already have content about AND that you want to provide content about.<\/p>\n Create categories that relate to whether people have looked for information on a topic in the last six months. This follows the user research principle that past behaviour is a good predictor of what people will actually do. <\/p>\n For example: Use the \u201ctalk aloud method\u201d and be ready to ask follow up questions. This is most important when people put things in the \u201cLooked for it but never found anything helpful\u201d category. It will help you spot pain points in finding information. <\/p>\n This won\u2019t give you an exact priority order list of content to work on. But it will give you:<\/p>\n Using card sorting with any or all of these 3 tips in place will help you create a collection of insights. Some of those insights will apply to your whole information, guidance or blog collection. Others will be user stories that can help shape specific pages.<\/p>\n\n
Making the most of card sorting<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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\u200dFocus on the \u201ctalk out loud as you sort\u201d part of the activity<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Add an \u201cI don\u2019t really know what this\u201d category to the possible groups
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Forget about menu structure – change the way your card sort works<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Looked for it and found something
Looked for it but never found anything helpful
Didn\u2019t look for it
Don\u2019t know what it is<\/p>\n\n
Resources to help you learn more\/ get started:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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