When designing an information system, its Information Architecture (IA) is very important.
Here we'll see the IA concept and one of the most valuable, useful and participatie tools: Card Sorting
2. Index
• Introduction: the value of organized knowledge
• Information design: Card Sorting
• The technique
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Tools
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3. The value of “organized knowledge”
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4. Why Navigation Design Is So Crucial to
the User Experience?
• The most common problem users come across is –
unable to find the desired content or features in the
website or application.
• Poorly designed navigation systems leads to more
than 75% of usability problems.
• The most common user problems
• I am not able to find what I am looking for
• I am not able to get back to previous page
• Where to go next now?
• The link clicked earlier is disappeared
• While visiting any website or application the users should be able to
answer these questions?
• Where am I?
• Where can I go?
• How do I get there?
• How do I get back?
Good navigation is easy to
find, the navigation menu
should always stand out.
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5. Information overload
(infobesity or infoxication)
• Difficulty for a person to have understanding and making
decisions caused by the presence of too much
information
• During last years a hug amount of information overloads
people.
• In general, this is beneficial,
• BUT, such amount of overload of information can have negative
effects.
• We cannot solve the amount of information, we can help users
facilitating the finding of this information.
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6. Possible Causes
• Information
• Multiplicity: electronic news, email, databases, Web pages, stored
documents, social networks, ...
• Incompatible formats
• Unawareness, ignorance of new tools
• Altavista study: 80% couldn’t/wouldn’t build a working Boolean
search
• Altavista study: 87% used less than 3 words
• POOR Schemes and Information Architectures
• Users do not understand how information is structured
• That information is available does not mean it is "achievable"
• “Out of sight, out of mind” [D. Norman]
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7. Information Architecture (IA)
• IA is about helping people understand their surroundings
and find what they're looking for —in the real world as well
as online.
• Definition
• The art and science of organizing and labeling web sites, intranets,
online communities and software to support usability and findability
http://www.iainstitute.org
http://www.iainstitute.org/documents/learn/What_is_IA.pdf
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11. The trunk test (for testing a IA)
• What site is this? (Site ID)
• What page am I on? (Page name)
• What are the major sections of this site? (Sections)
• What are my options at this level? (Local navigation)
• Where am I in the scheme of things? (“You are here”
indicators)
• How can I search?
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12. Top 3 IA Questions about Navigation
Menus
1. How Many Categories Should We Have?
• fundamental principle: the number of categories should be
determined by what makes it easiest for people to discover and
access information — not by some preordained decision that “we
should only have 4 categories”
2. Should Categories Be Listed in Alphabetical Order?
• 3 key factors to consider:
• Is there another organizing principle that would be more meaningful?
• Will visitors already know the exact category names?
• How many categories are there?
3. Should Hover-Activated Menus Be Eliminated Since
Touch Devices Don’t Allow Hovering?
by K. WHITENTON on January 4, 2015
http://goo.gl/dm4LFC
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13. Some good references on IA
(also in the virtual campus)
• http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/00001
0.php
• http://prezi.com/aafmvya6bk7t/understanding-information-
architecture/
• http://www.slideshare.net/petervandijck/everything-i-know-
about-information-architecture-mostly-categorization-in-
90-minutes
• http://www.uxabilidad.com/experiencia-de-
usuario/arquitectura-de-la-informacion.html
• http://www.nngroup.com/articles/intranet-information-
architecture-ia
• http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/02/adopting-a-
professional-compass-for-information-architecture.php
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14. CARD SORTING
Traditionally, User-Centered Design techniques are
used to develop the Information Architecture of
websites. The typical one is Card Sorting, where users
are given a set of cards labelled with the main topics of
the site and they group these cards following their
own criteria
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15. What is Card Sorting?
• Technical knowledge acquisition based on a
constructivist approach that serves to:
• Understanding how users envision the organization of
information
• Explore how the concepts are grouped by people
• Understanding users' mental model
• provides concrete data that can be instantiated
• Moreover, is:
• Cheep, quick, involves users, democratic, …
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16. Benefits
• Why sort?
• To better understand a problem and users’ view of it
• Source of concepts, terminology and organisation
• How is it done?
• Participants given objects, photos, cards or similar and are asked to
group them
• What are the results?
• Qualitative: concepts, terminology, understanding
• Quantitative: how frequently items are grouped together; how
groupings compare with a reference set
• What methods can be used?
• Face-to-face: ‘in-depth’ individuals sessions, pair sorting, with
observer, larger sessions with emphasis feedback
• Online: much larger sample sizes possible, using images or words
(little qualitative information though)
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17. Card Sorting in UCD
• CS has wide application in UCD answering questions
such as:
• How do users think about this problem?
• What words do they use?
• Are menu items or form fields grouped the way users expect?
• Is there anything we’ve forgotten?
• Paper-based sorting in particular can be very helpful
• No technological barriers
• Participants can write comments on cards, change terms, create
new items or groups (good qualitative results)
• Cards can appear in more than one group
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18. Method
1. Determine the list of topics (content)
2. Create cards
3. Selecting participants
4. Make the sorting sessions
5. Analyse the results
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19. 1. Determine the list of topics
• Each topic should be neither too generic or too
specific. It must represent a piece of content or
functionality that needs to be organized.
• The sample card to order should be "manageable"
• Avoid
• giving "clues" that lead users to organize topics in a (pre) defined.
• topics that include "grouping terms" (File, Edit, FAQs, ...)
• And, (perhaps) the most important
• The topics should be meaningful to the participants
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21. 2. Create the cards
• Materials Needed
• Paper cards, cardboard, Post-it, ...
• A notebook for notes
• Pencil and rubber
• A large surface to spread the cards
• Each topic is written on a card
• On certain occasions it is necessary a small description
• Must be "readable"
• We must have empty cards
• users can need to create groups
• …
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22. 3. Select participants
• Aim to have participants representing all possible
potential users
• NOT your fellow designers, friends, relatives, …
• be sure that the participants are familiar with the vocabulary
of the cards
• 15 to 20 participants should be successful
• Perform separate card sorting sessions for different
groups
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23. 4. Make the sorting sessions
• Explain the process
• A written explanation ensures that
everyone has the same level of
understanding
• Types
• Open Card Sorting
• Sorting without pre-established groups
• Useful for new architectures
• Closed Card Sorting
• Predefined groups
• For existing architectures
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24. 4. Make the sorting sessions
• Practical recommendations for participants
• READ ALL labels before sorting
• Awareness of the range of items to sort
• Arrange the cards using a common approach and according
to its own principles
• Allow a “I’m not sure" group
• Explain only when needed (not at the beginning)
• In an open card sorting session participants should label the
groups in their own way
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25. 4. Make the sorting sessions
• The UX expert
• Watch and listen
• Do NOT GUIDE the participants
• Take note of anything that may be of
importance
• questioning
• comments
• Suggestions
• …
Sorting Nº 1
Date 20/09/13
User Maite
Criteria Flavour
Groups Sweet: 1,4,8
Bitter: 3,5
Salty: 6,7,2
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26. 5. Analyse the results
http://uxpunk.com/websort http://www.conceptcodify.com http://www.userzoom.es/articles/o
nline-card-sorting-what-how-why
http://www.usabilitest.com/
CardSorting
http://www.usabilitest.com/CardSorting http://www.simplecardsort.com
https://sites.google.com/a/
uxsort.com/uxsort
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ca
rdsword
http://www.optimalworkshop.com
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27. 5. Analyse the results
• CardSortingGRIHO.jar + Analitzador_Clusters(GRIHO).jar
• Based on: http://www.cardzort.com/cardzort/download.php
• CardSortingGRIHO.jar
• Manage cards: create, modify,
save, print cards
• Run individual card sorting
sessions
• Analitzador_Clusters(GRI
HO).jar
• Analyse the results
• Provide dendogram
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30. NAME of the user who
is doing the sorting
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31. Step 1: sorting the cards
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32. Step 1: sorting the cards
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33. Step 2: giving names to the groups
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34. Analitzador_Clusters(GRIHO).jar
• Cluster analysis with data obtained from
CardSortingGRIHO.jar
• Cluster Analysis
• Algorithms based on similarity measures
• Exploratory method that identifies homogeneous groups of objects
(clusters)
• Many choices on the nature of the algorithm for combining groups
(based on similarity)
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35. How we measure the similarity between
two cards?
• Suppose we analyse the card sorting for a user u
• The distance between a pair of cards i and j is defined
as:
du(i,j) = 0 when i and j are grouped
du(i,j) = 1 otherwise
du(i,j) = du(j,i)
• And for N users final distance
between i and j is defined as
N
jid
jiD
N
u
u
1
),(
),(
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36. Distances matrix
1 2 3 4 5
1 X
2 0 X
3 0 0 X
4 1 1 1 X
5 1 1 1 0 X
1 2 3 4 5
1 X
2 0 X
3 1 1 X
4 0 0 1 X
5 1 1 0 1 X
1 2 3 4 5
1 X
2 0 X
3 0 0 X
4 0 0 0 X
5 1 1 1 1 X
1 2 3 4 5
1 X
2 0 X
3 0.340.34 X
4 0.340.340.66 X
5 1.0 1.0 0.660.66 X
+
=
3
User 1 User 2 User 3
+
[1,2,3], [4,5] [1,2,4], [3,5] [1,2,3,4], [5]
2
4
3
5
1
Items 1 and 2 were
together in all exercises.
Items 1 and 5 did not
appear together in any
exercise
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37. Obtaining the Clusters
1: One of the pairs with
minor distance is the
cluster
1 2 3 4 5
1 X
2 0 X
3 0.34 0.34 X
4 0.34 0.34 0.66 X
5 1.0 1.0 0.66 0.66 X
2: The cluster becomes a
single entity
(1,2) 3 4 5
(1,2) X
3 ? X
4 ? 0.66 X
5 ? 0.66 0.66 X
3: repeat this process: D[(1,2),3] = AVG{d(1,3), d(2,3)}
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38. Analitzador_Clusters(GRIHO).jar
• Perform cluster analysis on data obtained with
CardSortingGRIHO.jar
• Visualization of the user preferences for labelling clusters
• The distance reflects the number of matches between
people who have done the exercise
• How many users have put a couple of cards together?
• A greater number of people who have joined a pair of cards shorter
the distance between them.
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41. Analitzador_Clusters(GRIHO).jarNombr
es de los grupos
• With the resutls the UX professional can:
• Decide the most appropriate Information Architecture
• Naming the groups
• … from users’ point of view (mental
model)!!
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42. References
• Jakob Nelsen’s Web: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/card-
sorting-how-many-users-to-test
• The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction:
http://www.interaction-
design.org/encyclopedia/card_sorting.html
• Usability.gov:
http://www.usability.gov/methods/design_site/cardsort.html
• Blog “No Solo Usabilidad”:
http://www.nosolousabilidad.com/articulos/cardsorting.htm
• Kelly, G.A. (1955). The Psychology of Personal Constructs.
New York: W.W. Norton.
• Lamantia, J. (2003). Analyzing Card Sort Results with a
Spreadsheet Template. Boxes and Arrows.
• Maurer, D. (2003). Card-Based Classification Evaluation.
Boxes and Arrows.
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