Card sorting is a technique for understanding how website users group and label types of information.
In a card sort, each participant receives a set of index cards or sticky notes with items of content or functionality written on them. Sometimes automated tools represent cards.
In an open card sort, participants sort cards into groups and suggest a name for each group. In a closed card sort, participants place cards into pre-defined groups.
When individual card sorts are combined, patterns may emerge that help to predict the mental models users would use, consciously or unconsciously, to find things on a website.
Web planners use card sorts to
- suggest content categories
- draft an information architecture
- suggest a navigation scheme and menus
- identify different usage patterns amongst different groups of users
- understand users' preferred terminology
Card sorting is a user-centred design technique.
