Organize and Group Content

The University of Texas Information Architecture Group OGC001

Organize and Group Content:

Card Sort

Sally Krash

4/15/2001

The first step in preparing for the card sort was to research card sort methodologies. In doing so, two options for facilitating this task were discovered. The first was conducting the card sort by hand. The second was to use a card sort application. Several software downloads were found online, but most were too complicated to learn in time to use for the card sort. Therefore, the hand sort was chosen as the primary methodology, with IBM’s EZSort application chosen for data entry and analysis.

IBM’s EZSort includes two tools, Usort and EZCalc. Both are free downloads from http://www-3.ibm.com/easy/eou_ext.nsf/Publish/649. The study administrator sets up a list of card sort entities in Usort. The administrator must enter between 3 and 100 items. These entities can be shown in random or alphabetical order. The card sort can be done by individual participants or groups of participants, depending on the needs of the study. During the card sort, the list of content entities is shown on the left side of a computer screen. Participants select an entity, click on it, and drag it to the right side of the screen. In doing so, similar items are to be grouped together, with lines separating the different groupings. After all entities are grouped together, the groupings can be put into higher-level groupings. The last step in the process is to assign names to each high-level group, which is optional. The study administrator can also complete this process in the event that the card sort has already taken place.

For the purposes of this study, the card sort was done by hand. A list of content entities was generated by the Content and Needs Analysis group using data from Focus Group studies. Five pairs of participants were instructed to group similar items together, and then put similar groups together. Finally, they were to assign names to each group (optional). The results were then entered into the Usort application in the same manner as described above.

EZCalc, a cluster analysis tool, was then used to pull data in from the Usort application. Tree diagrams were generated for both a complete analysis and an average analysis. Each diagram was generated using its unique algorithm. The green and pink vertical lines indicate two distance score thresholds. The alternating blue and red text and horizontal lines indicate low-level groupings. Horizontal distances among the tree graph provide visual cues for both low-level and high-level groupings. The alternating peach and blue horizontal shaded areas indicate similarity groupings. A distance matrix was also generated in the event that the study team selects another cluster analysis program for site content organization.

The following is a list of category names in alphabetical order assigned by participants. If a category name was specified more than once, the number of times it was specified is in parenthesis.

High-Level Categories

Audience Specific

Information Resources

Library Information

Library Resources by Subject Area

Local Information (2)

Reference

Resources

SAPL Specific (2)

Special

Sub-Categories

About the Library

Audio/Video

Board & Friends of library

Book Awards & Recs

Books: Popular Subjects

Borrower Services

Branch Information

Branch Libraries

Branch Library Info

Calendar of Events

Calendars and Events

Catalogs & Databases

Children (2)

City Information

Classes

Community Centered Info

Community Events

Community Programs

Community Resources

Contact Information

Educational Resources

FAQ's

General Information

Hispanic Culture

Home Page Information

Information for Parents

Internet by Topic

Internet Resources

Internet Specific

Kids

Kids, etc.

Latino Culture

Library Administration (2)

Library Catalog Holdings

Library Class Schedule

Library Classes (2)

Library Collections

Library Contact Information

Library Exhibits

Library Information (2)

Library Support

Lists of Resources

Local Community

Local Events

Miscellaneous (3)

On Every Page

Parents

Patron Information

Policies (2)

Programs for the Public

Quick Info/Main Library

Reader Advisory