Card sorting is a useful tool for UX designers and is described here on Boxes and Arrows by Donna Maurer from Canberra.
Sam from Optimal Usability in NZ has created the online card sort tool Optimal Sort
It has been available for some time now and they have finally released it commercially! Well done guys!
It’s great for open and closed sorting in preparing your information architectures.
Open: You don’t know what the categories are that your content will go into.
Closed: You know the categories and need to put the content in them.
From the OptimalSort site:
A way to understand users
Card sorting involves users of a website ’sorting’ cards into groups that make the most sense to them. The stuff that is on the cards is the stuff that is on the website. This process provides insight into how users think about information.
Running a succesful sort:
At Objective Digital we use OptimalSort in a number of ways:
- To manage a card sort in ‘live’ testing internationally. You just ask people where to put the cards and do it for them online.
- To run remote card sorting and validate what you’ve found out in workshops face-to-face
What other ways do you use it?