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'''Card sorting''' is a simple technique in [[usability]] design where a group of subject experts or "users", however inexperienced with design, are guided to generate a category tree or [[folksonomy]]. It is a useful approach for designing workflows, menu structure, or web site navigation paths.
'''Card sorting''' has a characteristically low-tech approach. The concepts are first identified and written onto simple [[index card]]s or [[Post-it note]]s. The user group then arranges these to represent the groups or structures they are familiar with.<ref name="Nielsen 1995" >{{cite web
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Groups may either be organised as collaborative groups (
|title=Card Sorting: How Many Users to Test
|url=http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040719.html
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|date=[[July 19]], 2004
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A card sort is commonly undertaken when designing a navigation structure for an environment that offers an interesting variety of content and functionality, such as a web site.<ref name="Boxes and Arrows" >{{cite web
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}}</ref> In that context, the items to be organized are those that are significant in the environment. The way that the items are organized should make sense to the target audience and cannot be determined from first principles.
The field of [[information architecture]] is founded upon the study of the structure of information. If an accepted and standardized [[taxonomy]] exists for a subject, it would be natural to simply apply that taxonomy as a means of organizing both the information in the environment and any navigation to particular subjects or functions. Card sorting is applied when:
* The variety in the items to be organized is so great that no existing taxonomy is accepted as organizing the items.
* The similarities among the items make them difficult to divide clearly into categories.
* Members of the audience that uses the environment may differ significantly in how they view the similarities among items and the appropriate groupings of items.
To perform a card sort, a person representative of the audience is given a set of
==Open card sorting==
In an ''open card sort'', participants create their own names for the categories.
This helps reveal not only how they mentally classify the cards, but also what terms they use for the categories.
Open sorting is generative; it is typically used to discover patterns in how participants classify, which in turn helps generate ideas for organizing information.
==Closed card sorting==
In a ''closed card sort'', participants are provided with a predetermined set of category names. They then assign the index cards to these fixed categories.
This helps reveal how much different participants agree on which cards belong under each category.
Closed sorting is evaluative; it is typically used to judge whether a given set of category names provides an effective way to organize a given collection of content. (This kind of evaluation can also be done using [[Tree testing (information architecture)|tree testing]].
==Analyzing Card-Sort Results==
Various methods can be used to analyze the data. The purpose of the analysis is to extract patterns from the population of test subjects, so that a common set of categories and relationships emerges. This common set is then incorporated into the design of the environment, either for navigation or for other purposes.
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|publisher=Rosenfeld Media
|url=http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/cardsorting/content/bibliography/
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