Card Sorting Preparation for Thursday 10/2/14

Card Sorting Card sorting is a technique used to discover how people group and name content elements or chunks. It helps you answer questions such as – What elements belong together? What elements differ in some way? – What is a good name for an element or group? (informative, unambiguous, etc.) – How are elements or groups related? similarity, broader-than, narrower-than, part-of, sequence, other taxonomic or structural relationships – Is there general agreement, or do different people or groups of people have differing views? Card-sorting exercises can be used for analysis of existing website, or to revise or plan a new site.

Example: Organizing the Dessert Menu You are the owner of a restaurant that specializes in desserts. You want the menu on your website to emphasize the range of desserts. How will you group and label the desserts? You create cards with all the dessert names, and ask members of your staff and some frequent customers to sort them into groups for your menu. Sort the desserts below into groups for the menu. What “rules” define each group? Desserts angel-food cake apple-cranberry pie apple-walnut crumble baklava bittersweet chocolate milk shake brandy-butterscotch pudding cherry swirl ice cream chocolate chip cookies with pecans chocolate pecan pie chocolate-nut brownies cinnamon-encrusted walnuts coconut cream pie dark chocolate ice cream date bars flan fruit cake hot fudge sundae key lime pie lemon chiffon pie sugar-free lime Jell-O Mama's chocolate pudding maple-nut bars mixed berry milk shake orange sorbet peach pie peanut brittle pear tart pecan pie pumpkin pie strawberry ice cream tiramisu triple chocolate cake vanilla pudding walnut bread pudding