Card Sorting
Card Sorting helps you organize information in a comprehensible and intuitive way.
Description
Card Sorting is a data-collection method that can be particularly useful in understanding users' perception of the relationship between the various web-site elements.
Potential users are asked to sort cards displaying the contents of the web site's most important pages. The strength of the relationship between these pages is calculated with cluster-analysis software. Subsequently, a new information structure is created on the basis of the results.
Purpose
The purpose is to understand how target-group users are likely to group items, detect terminology that is likely to be misunderstood, and identify items that are difficult to categorize. Based on this, we develop structures (e.g. menu structure) that maximize the possibility of users being able to find information, functions or items on a web site, on an Intranet or when using software products.
Benefits
The result is closer match between the organizational structure of your product and the mental models of potential users. It also avoids the use of misleading terminology and features that could be misinterpreted.
When to apply
Planning - Sketching & Designing
