[Sigia-l] card sorting

[Eric Scheid]

On 4/6/03 10:00 AM, "Boniface Lau" <boniface_lau at compuserve.com> wrote:
> So, to substantiate your claim, please walk us through your process of
> sorting items into groups to demonstrate that there is indeed no need
> to observe order.

Here is the process I have used many times:

---------
I have a bucket of unsorted cards, I take one off the top of the pile, I
look at it. If there is no pile I feel it should go into I put it onto a
blank space. If I see a pile it should go into I put it there. Repeat.

The position of the piles on the tableaux is ad hoc and irrelevant. A casual
observer would not discern any special sequence or order, and I know I
certainly don't consciously arrange them in that manner.

Occasionally I might notice I have a lot of individual cards in which case I
would stop, examine some them, and make decide whether I want to re-assign
any of them or create new a new, broader classification, pile.

Occasionally I might notice that one pile has grown quite large compared to
the others in which case I might consider breaking that pile up into smaller
piles.
---------

The core process is: I have a card in hand, I look for a pile, if I see a
relevant pile I put it there. It's as simple as that.

Actually, thinking this through a bit more right now I realise that to
attempt some sorting of the groups actually be premature, as I have not yet
assigned names or other group level identifiers to these piles. I know each
pile according to the contents of each pile and a vague sense of the
commonalities of the members of that pile.

That's what works in practice. As curious as your theoretical pontifications
may be, until they are proven in practice they remain just that.

e.