Articles & Examples
Card sorting. Part 2 - Facilitation
Following on from part 1, you should now have everything ready to conduct your card sorts - cards, users, observers and most importantly a clear objective of what you want to achieve.
Closed card sort procedure
- Lay out top level cards
- Ask participants what they would expect to find under each category
- Ask them to place individual cards under each top level category
- Allow people to duplicate cards if they feel a card belonds in more than one category
Open card sort procedure
- Get users to sort cards into groups that make sense to them
- If card groups are large suggest breaking them down into sub groups
- Get the users to create cards which label groups and sub-groups
- Record the groupings so far, then ask the users if they are happy with it - allow them to make changes
- Discuss groups and labels
Facilitation and observation tips
- Make sure you record anything interesting about what users say about specific cards, as well as why they placed a card within each category.
- Allow them to move cards around until they are finished - try not to rush them.
- Avoid getting too involved in providing assistance - try to sit back and watch.
- If facilitating a pair or group, try to encourage everyone to talk.
- Make sure you’ve got a relieble record of the structure created at the end of each session. Didgital cameras are good way of recording this quickly.
Articles
- Five Simple Steps to designing grid systems
- Five Simple Steps to better typography
- Feeling your way around grids
- Design and the Divine Proportion
- Card Sorting - Part 1
- Card sorting. Part 2 - Facilitation
- Card sorting. Part 3 - Analysis and reporting
- Why use a grid?
- The One 2 One story
Examples
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I'm a graphic designer from near Cardiff in the UK. I've been a designer for over ten years now and primarily work on the web. I'm still partial to a bit of print every now and then though. I used to work for Agency.com in London as an Art Director before working as a Senior Designer for the BBC in sunny Cardiff. This was all before I took leave of my senses and formed my own design consultancy, Mark Boulton Design Ltd.
I've got a thing about grids and typography and occasionally ramble on about them to anyone who will listen.
Mark Boulton Design
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