Card-Sorting Exercise: Descriptions: Part 2

The difference between the next 2 parts of card-sorting:

Category Identification

Before beginning the category identification activity, the designer will need to make an initial decision about the category labels for the site. The results of the card sorting task should be the foundation for this decision.

During the category identification activity, the user is given the entire set of Web site objects along with the category labels for the site. For each Web site object, the participant is asked to indicate the category to "click on" in order to find that specific object.

Category Description

For the category description activity, the user is presented with the proposed category labels for the site (the same labels that were used in category identification) and is asked to describe the information they would expect to find if they clicked on that particular label. The description should consist of a brief two-to-three-sentence definition of the category along with examples of items the user would expect to find under this label.

Note: If the same set of users are completing both the category identification and category description activities, the order of these activities should be balanced to control for order effects. (That is, while one half of the participants perform the activities in a certain order, the remaining participants perform the activities in reverse order to minimize order bias.)

This activity is only to be used if you are having trouble naming a particular category:

Category Labeling

Category labeling is an activity that is most beneficial when you are having difficulty identifying the best label for a particular category. During this activity, users are presented with sample contents for a particular category along with three to five labels that are descriptive of that category (this can be done for all categories or just the ones you are having difficulty with). Users are asked to scan the information and choose the best label for the information or to enter a new label in a write-in field.

When analyzing the data, you are looking for high consensus for the labels chosen. If you are having difficulty achieving consensus, it might be the result of the poor category groupings, in which case further iterations with the category identification and description tasks are necessary.

[web advisory group]