Extending Card SortingComplementary Activities for Re-organizing a Large Informational Site Run Amok

Prepared by:

Michael Hawley – VP Experience Design

April 9, 2010

Mad*Pow Clients

Have you done card sorting?

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The Challenge

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The Challenge

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The Challenge

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Card Sorting

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“It’s quantitative! It will give us the answer!”

What Is Card Sorting?

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Don’t Be Scared…

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Common Question: Sorting Versus Finding

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Sorting Finding

Common Question: Context

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Common Question: Aggregate Data Reflect Different Needs?

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Sort These Sitcoms!

Seinfeld

Friends

Frasier

Everybody Loves Raymond

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air

The Simpsons

The King of Queens

I Love Lucy

Arrested Development

Taxi

The Office

Night Court

WKRP in Cincinnati

Home ImprovementThe King of Queens

M*A*S*H

Southpark

The Cosby Show

Cheers

Family Guy

All in the Family

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Home Improvement

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Happy Days

That 70's Show

Who's the Boss

Hogan's Heroes

Brady Bunch

Scrubs

Did You Use One of These?

• Friends

• Family - other

• Family - kids

• Animated

• Work

• Family

• Young and Single

• 30-Something

• 40-Something

• 60's

• 70's

• 80's

• 90's

• aught's

Participant 8 Participant 2 Participant 44

Participant 23 Participant 37 Participant 9

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• Shows I watch/ed regularly

• Popular shows that I do/did

not watch

• Guilty pleasures

• Classics

• Really Bad Shows

• Shows I'm Not Familiar with

or Not a Fan of

• Shows for 20-somethings

• A Show and its Spin-Off

• Shows with an African-

American Focus

• Animated Shows

• Shows with a Workplace

Setting

• Older Shows I really Liked

• "Ultra-Family-Type" Shows

Participant 23 Participant 37 Participant 9

• Actually Funny

• Overrated

• Snoozer

• Animated

• Classical Programming

• Not As funny as you think

Lots to Consider…

Organizational Organizational Organizational Organizational

StrategyStrategyStrategyStrategy

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ContentContentContentContent

ContextContextContextContext UserUserUserUserTaxonomy

What We’ve Tried

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Free Listing

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Focus Group Card Sorting

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Proposed Hierarchy Testing (Tree Jack)

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Findability Testing (‘FirstClick’ Testing)

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Contextual Card Sorting (or ‘FirstClick’ Testing): A New Methodology for Validating

Information Architectures

Wolfson, Bailey, Nall and Koyani

upa Conference 2008

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Research For Facets

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Naming Exercises

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Delphi Card Sorting

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Summary: Extend Card Sorting For Inspiration and Validation

• Free Listing

• Focus Group Card Sorting

• Proposed Hierarchy Validation (TreeJack)

• Findability Testing (FirstClick)

• Research For Facets• Research For Facets

• Naming Exercises

• Delphi Card Sorting

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Questions?

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Drop your card at our booth or

visit us at www.madpow.net

Prepared by:

Michael Hawley – VP Experience Design

April 9, 2010

Additional Resources

“Card Sorting - Designing Usable Categories” by Donna Spencer

“Investigation of Applying the Delphi Method to a New Card Sorting Technique” by Celeste Lyn Paul

http://obso1337.org/hci/delphi/IAIProcessGrant2006_Paul.pdf

“Card-Based Classification Evaluation” by Donna Spencer

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/card_based_classification_evaluation http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/card_based_classification_evaluation

“Beyond cardsorting: Free-listing methods to explore user categorizations” by Rashmi Sinha

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/beyond_cardsorting_free_listing_methods_to_explore_user_ca

tegorizations

“Card Sorting: Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned” by Sam Ng

http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000220.php

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