[Sigia-l] Card sorting? Why?

[Donna Maurer]

But have you actually done a card sort, using a good cross-section of content (not an 
arbitrary list of words)?

I have heaps of reservations about the technique (as most here will know), but every 
time I run one, I learn interesting things that form just one part of my research that 
goes into an eventual site structure.

But you aren't missing anything. It is important to think about the value and 
construction of every technique you use.

Donna

On 15 Nov 2005 at 13:56, Stewart Dean wrote:

> I'm going to throw this out as I really need to check that I'm not
> making some dumb mistake here.
> 
> I've been an IA for a good few years now, have sat through
> presentations on card sorting and still don't get why you would want
> the users to sort through a series of arbitrary terms.
> 
> I have been thinking about this for a while - why base the structure
> of a site upon words at all? It appears that it's usage and the areas
> of information that are what we are organising, not the labels.  I see
> a large amount of what I do about providing context and taking
> elements out of context and rearranging them feels to me as the
> opposite of what I do when I create the information architecture for a
> site.
> 
> In short I put card sorting in the same pile as focus groups - in that
> it adds noise to the solution rather than clarity.
> 
> There are other methods as well I question but let's start with card
> sorting. What am I missing here?
> 
-- 
Donna Maurer
Maadmob Interaction Design

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