Slides for Web Usability Course at UNC - Chapel Hill

1. Labels and Card Sorting
Serena Fenton

2. Unknown users provided:
70% of the bad terms
Serena Fenton

3. “Rather than simply mirroring your org chart, you
can better enhance usability by creating an
information architecture that reflects how
users view the content."
Jakob Nielsen
Serena Fenton

4. Card Sorting
“Can provide insight into users’ mental models,
illuminating the way that they often tacitly group,
sort and label tasks and content within their own
heads.”
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web
Serena Fenton

5. User Testing : : Card Sorting
 User testing is an evaluation method:
 we already have a design, and we're trying to find
out whether or not it's a good match with human
nature and user needs.
Jakob Nielsen
Serena Fenton

6. User Testing : : Card Sorting
 Card sorting is a generative method:
 We don't yet have a design, and our goal is to find
out how people think about certain issues.
 Great variability in different people's mental models
 Great variability in different people's vocabulary
they use to describe the same concepts.
 We must collect data from a fair number of users
before we can achieve a stable picture of the users'
preferred structure and determine how to
accommodate differences among users.
Jakob Nielsen
Serena Fenton

7. User Testing : : Card Sorting
 An existing website (User testing/evaluation):
 testing a few users will tell you whether people
have trouble with the information architecture.
 A new web site (Card sort/ generative method):
 you must sample more people.
Serena Fenton

8. Card Sort to Identify Trends:
 Do the users want to see the information
grouped by subject, process, business group, or
information type?
 How similar are the needs of the different user
groups?
 How different are their needs?
 How many potential main categories are
there? (typically relates to navigation)
 What should those groups be called?
Card sorting: a definitive guideSerena Fenton

9. Card Sorting
 Is a method for discovering how people group
items
 Helps to uncover the hierarchical structure of
your site
 suggestions for navigation
 suggestions for menus
 suggestions for possible taxonomies.
Serena Fenton

10. Card Sort with Established Headings
 Get two packs of 4" by 6" index cards
 One pack should be plain white, the other should
be colored.
 Write the name of each major heading
(Incentives, Feature Gallery, etc.) on a colored
card
 On the back of each of these cards,
inconspicuously write a unique identifying
number.
McGill Usability Testing Methods by Katie Pula and Sylvia Smith
Serena Fenton

11.  Write your labels on a white card.
 Arrange the colored heading cards on a table so
that they are side by side
 with the ID numbers hidden.
 Shuffle the deck of white informational item
cards and hand them to the participant.
 Ask the participant to sort the cards and put
them under the headings that make the most
sense to him or her.
Serena Fenton

12. After the Card Sort
 When the participant is done, record which
informational cards the participant sorted
under which heading cards by noting the ID
numbers you wrote on the backs of the colored
cards.
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13. Card Sort Overview
 Write the name (and perhaps a short description)
of each of the main items on an index card. Yes,
good old paper cards.
 Shuffle the cards and give the deck to a user.
(they must be representative users)
 Ask each user to sort the cards into piles, placing
items that belong together in the same pile.
 Users can make as many or as few piles as they want;
some piles can be big, others small.
Serena Fenton

14. Preparing for the Card Sort
 Write one item per card
 Use similar handwriting.
 If you do all caps on a few cards, your participants
may group those together.
 Provide blank cards and pens.
 You’ll forget something.
 They might know something you missed.
 They may want to rename
Serena Fenton

15. Selecting the Labels
 existing online content
 descriptions of business groups and processes
 planned applications and processes
 potential future content
 Sample List for Architecture Magazine
 Started with my content inventory and searched for
any missing categories
Serena Fenton

16. Creating the Cards
 Labels must be short
 Quickly read
 Labels must be clear
 Don’t guide the participant
 Short description or image on the back of the
card, when necessary
Card sorting: a definitive guideSerena Fenton

17. How Many Cards?
30 – 100 cards
 Less than 30
 Difficult to create groupings
 More than 100
 time consuming and tiring for participants.
Serena Fenton

18. Similarity
 Content must have enough similarity to allow
groupings to be formed.
 If the content is too varied, participants will not
be able to create natural groupings.
Serena Fenton

19. Running the Sort
 Make people as comfortable as possible.
 Make sure the cards are well shuffled
 Have participants work on their own,
 but let them know they can ask questions at any
time.
 Initially always answer a question with a
question
 Let participants know you will be doing that.
You don’t want to lead them
Serena Fenton

20. Card sorting: a definitive guideSerena Fenton

21. http://www.websort.net/
Best Practices in Card Sorting
Serena Fenton

22. How many users to test?
 For most usability studies, Neilsen recommends
testing five users
 “For card sorting, however, there's only a 0.75
correlation between the results from five users
and the ultimate results. That's not good
enough.
You must test fifteen users to reach a
correlation of 0.90, which is a more comfortable
place to stop. “
Jakob Nielsen
Serena Fenton

23. What to do With the Results
 Record informational and heading cards by ID
numbers (or by name)
 Handwritten or excel
 Chart your results
 Looking for broad patterns in the data
 Use cluster analysis software.
Serena Fenton

24. What Should Emerge:
 content that participants haven’t understood
well
 content that could belong to more than one
area
 alternative paths to content (for example, a list
of all “how-to” articles could be created)
 how different types of participants see
information
Serena Fenton

25. Sample Results
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26. WebSort
 Tree Diagram of
Relatedness
 Cluster Analysis
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27. Affinities
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28. Serena Fenton

29. Software Alternatives
 CardSort – Free! (master’s thesis)
 http://www.cardsort.net/author.html
 CardZort – 30 day trial
 http://www.cardzort.com/cardzort/download.php
 WebSort – Commercial Product
 http://www.websort.net/
 free trial account that allows one study with a maximum
of 10 participants.
Serena Fenton

30. http://www.architectmagazine.com/Serena Fenton

31. http://websort.net/go/inls461/
Serena Fenton

32. Resources
 Card sorting: a definitive guide by Donna Maurer and Todd Warfel
 http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/card_sorting_a_definitive_guide
 McGill Usability Testing Methods by Katie Pula and Sylvia Smith
 http://www.mcgill.com/media/McGill%20Digital%20Solutions%20%20Usability%20Testing%20Methods%20W
hite%20Paper.pdf
 Best Practices in Card Sorting by Larry E. Wood
 http://websort.net/maincontent/tutorial.pdf
Serena Fenton