Articles & Examples
Card sorting. Part 3 - Analysis and reporting
In the final part of the article I talk about perhaps the most important part of the procedure - Analysis. This is the part in which you can get the most bogged down. You must be thorough, ruthless and accurate.
In the final part of the article I talk about perhaps the most important part of the procedure - Analysis. This is the part in which you can get the most bogged down. You must be thorough, ruthless and accurate.
Card sorting won’t always give you the answer - it may just give you more questions. This is where the analysis comes in.
Section Label Analysis
- This most commonly applies to Open card sorts but it might be applicable for closed if several users proposed new names for sections
- Put common labels together and decide on the best label
- It is possible the most common suggestion is not the best label though - use your judgement.
Closed Card Sort Analysis
- Record in a table which card was put in each section
- Caculate the percentage of times that it was put in each section across all your sessions
- Highligh where percentage values are close together - 60% and 40% for ‘web servers’ might suggest that the label needs changing to reflect the content, or that there needs to be a link to the information from both sections.
Affinity Diagrams
- This technique allows you to calculate how strong relationships between different content items are - based on the number of times they were grouped together
- Record each time a card was matched with another card
- Repeat this with each card sort you have
- calculate the percentage (number of times a relationship is recorded divided by the number of card sort sessions)
- Then you can map the relationships in the diagram
- This analysis will show strong relationships versus weaker ones, and will help you prioritise pairings.
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
If you're after simple, clean and effective web design; let me know.