[Sigia-l] card sorting (was: well defined IA activities?)

[Eric Scheid]

On 10/12/04 9:56 AM, "Eric Scheid" <eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au> wrote:

> The <http://www.iawiki.net/ClosedCardSort> page also illustrates the
> vagueness we have with IA - from this list (SIGIA-L) and the top dozen
> google pages there was scant information beyond the basic definition. It was
> only as I dug deeper through google did I discover more useful information
> (go read the page to see).

and yet there remains unanswered questions about card sorting in practice.

For example, just what do we write onto the cards? Does it work better to
write just the name/label of the conceptual generic item (eg. "a case
study"), or use multiple instances of actual content (eg. "Using Foo - a
case study", "Case study #3: Qaz vs Qaaz") or do we try avoiding prejudicing
the exercise by avoiding categorical labels (eg. "1,000 words describing how
Qaz was implemented at Foo Corp"). As a general guideline, which works
better: (1) a short two or three word label on each card, or (2) a fuller
and longer description of the content on each card?

e.