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Card Sorting
Note that if you want someone to conduct card-sort based research or design, visit our Card Sorting Services page. Read on about using and obtaining our tools yourself.
On this page:
See downloads (on this page) for a copy of the slides for the UK UPA, SUG and Scottish UPA talk "Everything you've always wanted to know about card sorting"
What's new
(Last updated 01-May-2008)
William Hudson is giving a talk on advanced card sorting techniques at the UK UPA in London on the evening of 20 March 2008.
Our card sorting analysis software SynCaps version 1.3.7 corrects a problem that caused EZCalc to get confused if cards were missed out of a sort. (SynCaps generates a EZSort/EZCalc format file.) It is digitally signed, meaning that you will get fewer confirmation dialogs when running it. It will also work under Windows Vista (32 bit) without requiring administration privileges.
There has also been a minor update to the instructions in all three zip files offered below, which explains the format of participant data.
This version supports the group names added to EZSort-formatted output files produced by Websort.net. For anyone wanting to do remote card sorting and still have all of the analyses SynCaps makes possible, just use Larry and Jed Wood's Websort.net and select an EZ-Calc compatible download. In SynCaps, select 'EZSort Files (.rec)' for input. Quality of fit (input by participants) is not supported, but everything else will work the same way as it does for SynCaps files.
Users of earlier versions can upgrade for free - just download the new executable plus either the A4 or US Letter templates and instructions . New users can try SynCaps free for 14 days.
Introduction
Card sorting is a powerful technique for assessing how users group related concepts together. In its simplest form, a researcher would write concepts - usually menu items for interaction design - on cards and ask users to group related items together. In a closed card sort, the number of groups and their names are fixed. In open card sorts, the number and names of groups are determined by the participants, although the researcher may specify limits (3 to 5 groups, for example).
In a fully card sort, the researcher would then have to go through the cards and produce a tally of how many times concepts were grouped together. The resulting proximity data can then be used establish overall grouping, usually through a statistical procedure called cluster analysis.
Naturally, processing card sorts by hand can be tedious: it would not be unusual to have 15 participants x (50 cards + 7 groups) = 855 cards. But computers are good at repetitive tasks, so several card sorting software packages appeared, most notably IBM's free EZSort software consisting of USort and EZCalc. Card data is entered by the researcher and participants manipulate the groups on-screen with USort. The resulting data is analysed with EZCalc, using cluster analysis techniques.
This makes the researcher's job much easier but raises serious concerns about the quality of the results since manipulating the cards on-screen can be confusing and intimidating for users. Fully automated card-sorting also usually have no provisions for participants to question or change the terms being used.
Caps: Computer-Aided Paper Sorting
Appropriate allocation of tasks to users and computers has always been an important part of successful interaction design. In the case of card sorting, we would like users to work with materials they are comfortable with (cards and pens), while reducing the task load for researchers. This is where Caps (Computer-Aided Paper Sorting) comes in. The cards are computer printed with barcodes (using a standard office laser printer) that make for very quick data capture. A sample card is shown below.
(Shown actual size)
Here are some of the benefits of Caps:
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Card preparation: Cards are printed by researchers on standard-sized A4 or US-letter perforated sheets (4 to a sheet). The cards can include descriptions to compensate for a lack of context, plus alternative terms, where required.
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Sorting: Participants separate the cards (this only takes a few seconds) and handle them normally. They may write queries or other notes on the cards and circle alternative terms. (Neither is usually possible with fully automated sorting.)
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Quality of fit: Our card templates and data preparation software allow participants to code a quality-of-fit measure in a second pass. This indicates how well they think each card fits the group selected for it by marking Poor, Good or Perfect. The result is a quality-of-fit metric for each item which can be used to generate several useful reports and to adjust the cluster analysis tree diagrams (dendograms).
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Data collection: Cards are scanned with an inexpensive barcode reader. For closed sorts (where the group names are provided) this takes less than a second per card and is very accurate compared to keyboard data entry or manual counting. For open sorts, the group names written on the cards need to be typed in during scanning, but this adds only a few minutes in total.
- Data analysis: Our cluster analysis software, SynCaps (see below) is very easy to use and produces a cluster analysis dendogram as a Windows Metafile that can be pasted or dragged into Microsoft Office applications or similar. It can be resized or printed without loss of quality (unlike bitmap images). SynCaps also generates output data files for:
Sample Analyses
Dendogram from SynCaps (plus signs show quality of fit)
Background colours, font, font size and number of groups are user adjustable. The dendogram window contains a Windows Metafile image that can be copied and pasted (or dragged and dropped) into Microsoft Office applications such as Word and similar. It can be resized or printed without loss of quality.
In addition, since output is in a form suitable for SPSS, Excel and other packages, there are many alternative analyses available such as the following examples:
Costs
Caps is relatively inexpensive if you already own a printer and a Windows PC. The pre-perforated A4 or US-letter sheets can be purchased from ordinary office suppliers in most countries (details below) although we do supply A4 sheets, for UK customers, in more cost-effective quantities.
Hand-held USB barcode scanners vary in cost according to location. In the US, they can easily be obtained for less than $100. They are somewhat more expensive in the UK and Europe (consequently, in the UK we supply a barcode scanner suited to the purpose ).
Getting Started with Card Sorting
What you need:
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Instructions. These are included with the SynCaps download, below. You do not have to buy Syncaps in order to try it or to read the instructions.
- A4 or US-letter perforated sheets are available from several sources. They should work in most printers, but you need to check this yourself.
UK - we sell these in boxes of 250 A4 sheets (1000 A6 cards)
Elsewhere - Avery 3381 (US-letter), Sigel LP 711 (A4) or similar
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Microsoft Word documents for producing cards using mail merge. Available free for download (see below).
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USB barcode scanner. Almost any scanner that emulates a keyboard (the technical term is a Human Interface Device or HID) and can read "Code 3 of 9" barcodes should suffice. If in doubt, download a template, print off a page and try it. For the UK we sell a suitable scanner.
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Our data preparation and analysis software, SynCaps. This can be tried free for 14 days and is fairly inexpensive. Download it to try and buy a license later if you want to keep using it (see below).
- Additional data analysis software. SynCaps provides a dendogram suitable for inclusion in reports. You can use SPSS or Microsoft Excel to perform further analysis on the output files from SynCaps (the SPSS output includes a script to produce a basic dendogram). Any software that can read comma-separated-value (CSV) files can be used instead of Excel.
Downloads
Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About Card Sorting
Slides of William Hudson's talk to the UK UPA, Southwestern Usability Group (SUG) and Scottish UPA:
Right-click to download Acrobat Reader (pdf) file
(cardsort.pdf, last modified
04-Apr-2008
, size
417k
)
(Download the free Acrobat Reader application from Adobe if it is not installed already.)
Results and analysis for Scottish UPA (SUPA) films card sort:
Right-click to download Acrobat Reader (pdf) file
(supacardsort.pdf, last modified
04-Apr-2008
, size
51k
)
Raw SynCaps data file for Scottish UPA (SUPA) films card sort:
Right-click to download SynCaps text file
(supacardsort.txt, last modified
04-Apr-2008
, size
2k
)
Microsoft Word Documents
Note that for open card sorts, we suggest that you just use blank group cards. Participants will be instructed to write the group names on the blank cards. If you are using the EZSort output, the names will need to be typed in during data capture, otherwise the group names can simply be omitted.
To download the files, right-click the links and select "Save target as..." (or similar for browsers other than Internet Explorer). All of the files are stored in compressed zip file form.
A4 Downloads
- Participant cards - numbered (just print as many as you need)
- Group cards for closed card sorts (fixed groups - includes a mail
merge master and data file for group names)
- Item cards - includes a mail merge master and data file for item
names, descriptions and alternatives.
- Sub-group cards - used to split groups.
- (Download SynCaps for instructions on how to use the templates)
Right-click to download A4 documents in a zip file
(capsa4.zip, last modified
04-Apr-2008
, size
727k
)
US Letter (Quarto) Downloads
- Participant cards - numbered (just print as many as you need)
- Group cards for closed card sorts (fixed groups - includes a mail
merge master and data file for group names)
- Item cards - includes a mail merge master and data file for item
names, descriptions and alternatives.
- Sub-group cards - used to split groups.
- (Download SynCaps for instructions on how to use the templates)
Right-click to download US Letter documents
(capslt.zip, last modified
04-Apr-2008
, size
874k
)
SynCaps Cluster Analysis Software
This software works on most versions of Windows and is available as a free trial for 14 days. It processes the the data file produced from barcode scanning, produces a dendogram and output files suitable for further analysis by Excel or similar packages (see sample analyses, above). Detailed instructions are included.
SynCaps Download
Right-click to download SynCaps V1.3.5 for Windows
(syncapsv1.zip, last modified
04-Apr-2008
, size
424k
)
Don't forget that you will need one of the free Word mailmerge downloads (above) in order to computer-print the cards with bar codes.
SynCaps is free to try for 14 days. A single machine license A single machine license costs £40.00 GBP.
To purchase a license, first download and run the software to make sure that it meets your requirements. Then either select the "Buy now" button in the program's licensing window or copy and paste the serial number from the licensing window into the following field:
Please note that you do not need a different copy of the program itself. The license key allows the trial version to work beyond the initial 14 day period.
Shop
Hints and Tips
- Handling cards. One of the most awkward aspects of dealing with large numbers of cards is separating them for processing. Here is a simple but effective technique: take a handful of cards and "fan" them so that the form a shallow slope away from you when placed on the table. Then you will be able to pick up each card from its top edge without getting its neighbours too. (From workshops I have found that "fanning" is a lost art. If you've never done it, follow these instructions:
- Hold the cards loosely in both hands and bend them in an arc so that the edges are no longer aligned
- Pinch the cards between the thumb and finger of one hand and allow them to return to their "flat" position. The edges of the cards will remain unaligned.
- Repeat this process, alternating hands, until the desired separation is acheived.)
Keywords: card sorting, information architecture, menu design, screen design, cluster analysis, caps, syncaps
