[Sigia-l] My card sorting book is underway!

[Fred Beecher]

On 4/25/06, Listera <listera at rcn.com> wrote:
>
> Well, there's nothing touchy-feely about field work, especially when the
> findings are well articulated. Of course, I can characterize card sorting as
> statistical junk, too. :-)
>
> As you might guess, I don't buy much of this "quantification" nonsense. I've

I highly doubt that any of us use card sorting as a quantitative
research tool. The number of participants you'd need for decently
accurate results (for most audiences) is far too large to be
practical.

Besides, a big part of the card sort is listening to people tell you
WHY they're grouping things together, making card sorting a very
qualitative methodolgy. Looking at a stack of sorted cards won't tell
you near as much as listening to people tell you why they're sorting
them into these particular groups. This is the real value of card
sorting, in my view, this relatively clear window into the user's
mental model.

- Fred