Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
CARD-SORTING TOOLS
A number of tools are available for conducting card-sorting exercises. Some are desktop
applications, whereas others are web based. Most of these include basic analysis capabilities
(e.g., hierarchical cluster analysis). Here are some of the ones we're familiar with:
•
CardZort(
http://www.cardzort.com/cardzort/
)
(a Windows application)
•
OptimalSort(
http://www.optimalworkshop.com/optimalsort.htm
)
(a web-based
service)
•
UsabiliTestCardsorting(
http://www.usabilitest.com/CardSorting
)
(a web-based
service)
•
UserZoomCardsorting(
http://www.userzoom.com/products/card-sorting
)(a web-
based service)
•
UzCardSort(
http://uzilla.mozdev.org/cardsort.html
)
(a Mozilla extension)
•
Websort(
http://www.websort.net/
)
(a web-based service)
•
XSort(
http://www.xsortapp.com/
)
(a Mac OS X application)
Although not a card-sorting tool, you could also use PowerPoint or similar programs to
do card-sorting exercises when the number of cards is relatively small. Create a slide that
has the cards to be sorted along with empty boxes and then e-mail that to participants,
asking them to put the cards into the boxes and to name the boxes. Then they simply
email the file back. Of course, you're on your own for the analysis in this case.
9.2.1 Analyses of Open Card-Sort Data
One way to analyze data from an open card sort is to create a matrix of the “per-
ceived distances” (also called a dissimilarity matrix) among all pairs of cards
in the study. For example, assume you conducted a card-sorting study using 10
fruits: apples, oranges, strawberries, bananas, peaches, plums, tomatoes, pears,
grapes, and cherries. Assume one participant in the study created the following
names and groupings:
•
“Large,roundfruits”:apples,oranges,peaches,tomatoes
•
“Smallfruits”:strawberries,grapes,cherries,plums
•
“Funny-shapedfruits”:bananas,pears
You can then create a matrix of “perceived distances” among all pairs of fruits
for each participant using the following rules:
•
Ifthispersonputapairofcardsinthesamegroup,itgetsadistanceof0.
•
Ifthispersonputapairofcardsintodifferentgroups,itgetsadistance
of 1.
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