Card sorting article published
Yay! the card sorting article that I wrote with Todd Warfel has been published on Boxes and Arrows.
So, someone’s sure to ask why I, after carrying on about card sorting here and on mailing lists, would write an article about it. I don’t think it’s a bad technique, but am concerned when I see people using it as their main technique to ‘create a new IA’. Two main reasons:
- it’s too content-centric, which may result in an IA not suited when users attempt real tasks
- no technique should ever be used in isolation
Anyway, go read it, and leave your comments and variations over on Boxes and Arrows…
April 23rd, 2004 at 4:19 pm
This article is translated into Russian and published at:
http://www.webmascon.com/topics/planning/19a.asp
p.s. Comments form at “Boxes and Arrows” is really broken.
May 4th, 2004 at 5:55 pm
Hi Donna maurer,
In relation to the cardsorting technique:
What do you think about the users (real people) feeling the pressure to evaluate themsleves against their colleagues while grouping the content,inturn making them more concious groupers of information in comparison to a real user browsing a website.
May 10th, 2004 at 8:46 pm
I don’t think that the users feel the pressure to compare against each other - at least I’ve never witnessed this. I do however think that there is a difference compared to a real user browsing a website - one is a categorisation activity, one is a task…quite different activities really.