[Sigia-l] card sorting: dealing with multiple placements

[Todd R.Warfel]

On Saturday, May 31, 2003, at 07:03 PM, Boniface Lau wrote:

>> I've done "card sorts" with users many times, and never have we used
>> some mechanical device for processing the cards...
>> Am I missing something here?
>
> Yes, couple things.
>
> First, the concept of sorting. Sorting is about order. But IAs use
> card sort for its grouping effect.

Actually, I wouldn't say you're really missing something. You've just 
only used one of the two primary methods. There are two methods for 
doing card sorts in our domain - manually with cards or with a software 
program called EZSort by IBM. You can read more about these two 
different methods in a paper I wrote called Modeling Organization: 
Methods for Increasing a System's Findability 
(http://messagefirst.com/downloads/ModelingOrganization.pdf).

Second in IA card sorting is about grouping, not order (this is where 
Lau and I seem to disagree). The easiest way to differentiate between 
the two is this:

Grouping is about putting like things into piles or groups.
Ordering, on the other hand, is about itemizing things in a hierarchy 
(e.g. 1-5, best to worst).

In card sorts done on content inventories, we typically don't want 
participants to order things, we want them to group them. Therefore, in 
IA, card sorts are not about ordering, but rather grouping. Within 
those groups, it's our job to look for patterns, then create a 
structure based on those patterns. We want users to put items into 
piles and give them a name (the above paper describes this in more 
detail).

>> Not quite sure what you mean by "the ultimate goal of sorting".
>
> When order is not observed, there is no sorting.

That can't be true. See above. Participants can and do sort into groups 
without creating an order. Perhaps you have a different definition of 
order?

Cheers!

Todd R. Warfel

_//message first [method second]
-=========================-
User Experience Architect
message first
[P] (607) 339-9640
[E] twarfel at messagefirst.com
[w] http://messagefirst.com
-=========================-

In theory, theory and practice are the same,
but in practice, they're not.