Card Sorting
Designing Usable Categories
Card sorting is an effective, easy-to-use method for understanding how people think about content and categories. It helps you create information that is easy to find and understand. In Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories, Donna Spencer shows you how to plan and run a card sort, analyze the results, and apply the outcomes to your projects.
Card sorting is an effective, easy-to-use method for understanding how people think about content and categories. It helps you create information that is easy to find and understand. In Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories, Donna Spencer shows you how to plan and run a card sort, analyze the results, and apply the outcomes to your projects.
Testimonials
This is a wonderful book on a much-needed topic. While card sorting is a basic tool of the trade, it’s previously received short-shrift in any practical publication. Donna’s done an amazing job explaining (in easy-to-understand terms) what every designer, architect, and researcher should know about the ins-and-outs of card sorting. (You might need to buy two copies, because I guarantee someone will borrow your first copy and never return it.)
Jared M. Spool, CEO and Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
This book is a fresh, clear, practical explanation of the value of card-sorting, how to do it, and how to use the results. Spencer mixes step-by-step instructions and good examples with just enough theory. You’ll emerge from this book with new skills to create great user-centered information architectures–and smart responses to tricky questions from pesky stakeholders.
Tamara Adlin, Founding Partner, Fell Swoop, and co-author of The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design
I wish we had this book when we first started doing card sorting. It’s a fantastic handbook that is full of very practical advice and examples from Donna’s extensive experience. We will be recommending it to all our customers.
Sam Ng, Creator of online card sorting tool OptimalSort
Donna has put together the definitive work on card sorting, a must have tool for all information architects. If you want to plan, run and analyse your own card sorts, this book has it all.
Andy Budd, User Experience Director, Clearleft
The ultimate guide to one of the under-appreciated user research methods in our toolbox. Whether you work on small web sites or in large corporate environments, this book is just the right size to give you everything you need to know to be a pro at card sorting.
Keith Instone, Information architecture lead, IBM.com user experience
This book is a godsend for those planning or using card-sorting methods. It is well and attractively organised, with a clear expository style and layout. Most important, it gives detailed and clear instructions for the planning, design, collection and analysis of this popular method of data-collection.
Anthony P.M. Coxon, Emeritus Professor, University of Wales, and author of Sorting Data: Collection and Analysis
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: All About Card Sorting
Chapter 2: All About Organizing
Chapter 3: Defining the Need
Chapter 4: Choose the Method
Chapter 5: Choose the Content
Chapter 6: Choose the People
Chapter 7: Make the Cards
Chapter 8: Manage the Sort
Chapter 9: Use Exploratory Analysis
Chapter 10: Use Statistical Analysis
Chapter 11: Use What You’ve Learned
FAQ
These common questions about card sorting and their short answers are taken from Donna Spencer’s book Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories. You can find longer answers to each in your copy of the book, either printed or digital version.
- I wrote our content on cards/sticky notes and our team shuffled it around to create the IA. That’s a card sort, isn’t it?
Not really. That’s just shuffling content ideas around the table (which is still useful, just not really a card sort). I think the essential element to something being a card sort is that it involves real users of your information.
See Chapter 1 for more information on what a card sort involves.
