usability testing: labels and card sorting
TRANSCRIPT
Labels and Card Sorting
Serena Fenton
Unknown users provided:70% of the bad terms
Serena Fenton
“Rather than simply mirroring your org chart, you can better enhance usability by creating an information architecture that reflects how users view the content."
Jakob Nielsen
Serena Fenton
Card Sorting
“Can provide insight into users’ mental models, illuminating the way that they often tacitly group, sort and label tasks and content within their own heads.”
Information Architecture for the World Wide WebSerena Fenton
User Testing : : Card Sorting User testing is an evaluation method:
we already have a design, and we're trying to find out whether or not it's a good match with human nature and user needs.
Jakob Nielsen
Serena Fenton
User Testing : : Card Sorting Card sorting is a generative method:
We don't yet have a design, and our goal is to find out how people think about certain issues.
Great variability in different people's mental models
Great variability in different people's vocabulary they use to describe the same concepts.
We must collect data from a fair number of users before we can achieve a stable picture of the users' preferred structure and determine how to accommodate differences among users.
Jakob NielsenSerena Fenton
User Testing : : Card Sorting An existing website (User
testing/evaluation): testing a few users will tell you whether
people have trouble with the information architecture.
A new web site (Card sort/ generative method): you must sample more people.
Serena Fenton
Card Sort to Identify Trends: Do the users want to see the
information grouped by subject, process, business group, or information type?
How similar are the needs of the different user groups?
How different are their needs? How many potential main categories
are there? (typically relates to navigation)
What should those groups be called?Card sorting: a definitive guideSerena Fenton
Card Sorting
Is a method for discovering how people group items
Helps to uncover the hierarchical structure of your site suggestions for navigation suggestions for menus suggestions for possible taxonomies.
Serena Fenton
Card Sort with Established Headings
Get two packs of 4" by 6" index cards One pack should be plain white, the other
should be colored. Write the name of each major heading
(Incentives, Feature Gallery, etc.) on a colored card
On the back of each of these cards, inconspicuously write a unique identifying number.
McGill Usability Testing Methods by Katie Pula and Sylvia Smith
Serena Fenton
Write your labels on a white card. Arrange the colored heading cards on a
table so that they are side by side with the ID numbers hidden.
Shuffle the deck of white informational item cards and hand them to the participant.
Ask the participant to sort the cards and put them under the headings that make the most sense to him or her.
Serena Fenton
After the Card Sort
When the participant is done, record which informational cards the participant sorted under which heading cards by noting the ID numbers you wrote on the backs of the colored cards.
Serena Fenton
Card Sort Overview Write the name (and perhaps a short
description) of each of the main items on an index card. Yes, good old paper cards.
Shuffle the cards and give the deck to a user. (they must be representative users)
Ask each user to sort the cards into piles, placing items that belong together in the same pile. Users can make as many or as few piles as
they want; some piles can be big, others small. Serena Fenton
Preparing for the Card Sort Write one item per card Use similar handwriting.
If you do all caps on a few cards, your participants may group those together.
Provide blank cards and pens. You’ll forget something. They might know something you missed. They may want to rename
Serena Fenton
Selecting the Labels existing online content descriptions of business groups and
processes planned applications and processes potential future content Sample List for Architecture Magazine
Started with my content inventory and searched for any missing categories
Serena Fenton
Creating the Cards
Labels must be short Quickly read
Labels must be clear Don’t guide the participant
Short description or image on the back of the card, when necessary
Card sorting: a definitive guideSerena Fenton
How Many Cards?
30 – 100 cards
Less than 30 Difficult to create groupings
More than 100 time consuming and tiring for participants.
Serena Fenton
Similarity
Content must have enough similarity to allow groupings to be formed.
If the content is too varied, participants will not be able to create natural groupings.
Serena Fenton
Running the Sort Make people as comfortable as
possible. Make sure the cards are well shuffled Have participants work on their own,
but let them know they can ask questions at any time.
Initially always answer a question with a question Let participants know you will be doing that.
You don’t want to lead themSerena Fenton
Card sorting: a definitive guideSerena Fenton
http://www.websort.net/
Best Practices in Card Sorting
Serena Fenton
How many users to test?
For most usability studies, Neilsen recommends testing five users
“For card sorting, however, there's only a 0.75 correlation between the results from five users and the ultimate results. That's not good enough. You must test fifteen users to reach a correlation of 0.90, which is a more comfortable place to stop. “
Jakob Nielsen
Serena Fenton
What to do With the Results Record informational and heading cards
by ID numbers (or by name) Handwritten or excel
Chart your results Looking for broad patterns in the data Use cluster analysis software.
Serena Fenton
What Should Emerge:
content that participants haven’t understood well
content that could belong to more than one area
alternative paths to content (for example, a list of all “how-to” articles could be created)
how different types of participants see information
Serena Fenton
Sample Results
Serena Fenton
WebSort
Tree Diagram of Relatedness Cluster Analysis
Serena Fenton
Affinities
Serena Fenton
Serena Fenton
Software Alternatives
CardSort – Free! (master’s thesis) http://www.cardsort.net/author.html
CardZort – 30 day trial http://www.cardzort.com/cardzort/download.
php
WebSort – Commercial Product http://www.websort.net/
free trial account that allows one study with a maximum of 10 participants.
Serena Fenton
Resources Card sorting: a definitive guide by Donna Maurer and Todd
Warfel http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/card_sorting_a_definitive_guide
McGill Usability Testing Methods by Katie Pula and Sylvia Smith http://www.mcgill.com/media/McGill%20Digital%20Solutions%20%20Usability%20Testing%20M
ethods%20White%20Paper.pdf Best Practices in Card Sorting by Larry E. Wood
http://websort.net/maincontent/tutorial.pdf
Serena Fenton