2. A G E N D A
• What is card sorting
• Understanding the context of web design
• Mental models
• Card sort exercise (individual)
• Sharing your card sort
• Group processing
• Next steps
• Early designs by James Breen
Hiram A. Quinones
Business Access LLC
3. “The beginning of all
understanding is classification”
- Hyden White
Hiram A. Quinones
Business Access LLC
4. How do we organize all that information?
Card Sorting can help
Hiram A. Quinones
Business Access LLC
5. What is a Card Sort?
A card sort is a user-centered design method
for increasing a system’s findability.
The process involves sorting a series of cards,
each labeled with a piece of content or
functionality, into groups that make sense to
users or participants.
Hiram A. Quinones
Business Access LLC
13. Mental Models
“Mental models are deeply held internal images
of how the world works, images that limit us to
familiar ways of thinking and acting. Very often,
we are not consciously aware of our mental
models or the effects they have on our behavior”
- Peter Senge
Hiram A. Quinones
Business Access LLC
16. Questions
Why are
most people
coming to
the site?
Are these people finding what
they came for?
Yes or No
How do we know?
Hiram A. Quinones
Business Access LLC
21. Why Use Card Sorting?
Quick, inexpensive and reliable method
Which serves as input
Into the information design process
Card sorting provides suggestions into:
navigation, menus and taxonomies
Hiram A. Quinones
Business Access LLC
25. Let’s give it a go!
• Everyone has the same cards
• Go through the cards first
• Organize the cards based on how you organize
things.
• If you feel there is information missing, you
may use the blank cards to add your own
information.
• When the card sorting time closes, share how
you categorized the content.
• Keep your cards in the order you created and
hand them to the facilitator.
Hyden White historian and thought leader for classification.
Developing context as to why user experience, information architecture are important.
From the Fifth Discipline, mental models are the 1st discipline.
1- the information we have massed in the organization does not get through the user’s filter
2- some information gets through but is changed
3- only the familiar information, ways of thinking gets through the filter unchanged
This slide was added afterwards to show how through the card sorting process we were able to refine the companies goals and objectives.