This is a practical case study where I worked with an educational testing and assessment company to help them redesign their information architecture for their corporate intranet, using an open card sort. So many companies build corporate intranets and then don’t do anything with them, so they just languish and are ignored by employees. The company clearly saw the benefit of a corporate intranet and wanted to improve the site for its employees. It saw this as a competitive advantage.

1. Physical and Online Card Sorts:
A Practical Overview and Case Study
Bob Thomas
Katelyn Thompson
May 28, 2008

2. Outline
•Scope, Goals, and Objectives
•Current Navigational Hierarchy
•Methodology
•Card Sorts
•Analysis of Results
•Recommendations
•Next Steps

3. Scope, Objectives, and Goals
• Mission
• “Our mission is to improve teaching and learning by providing
customized assessment products and educational services.”
(http://measuredprogress.org/aboutus/index.html)
• Scope
• This project is focused only on Insite, the company’s intranet web
site for employees.
• Objectives
• To make it easier for Measured Progress employees to find
information on the intranet, i.e., to “lead with the need.”
• Goals
• Redesign Insite, focusing on the navigation and organization
• Make the site user friendly
• Make the site attractive to employees

4. Home HR Policies and Procedures
The goal is to unite the separate Insite and HR Policies and Procedures sites, each
created with different software applications.
Participants commented that that they would like to use Search and Site Map
features. These were linked only from the home page.

5. InService
InForm
“You’d think the [Accident and Injury Report] form is under InForm.”
InService > HR > Policy Guide > General Administration > Operational Policies > Safety > Accident Reporting and Investigation
Plan > [Text… Scroll Down Page] … Accident Report Form (7 clicks)
“A person could bleed to death before the form is even located!”

6. Current Navigational Hierarchy
• Insite is broad and shallow
• HR Policies & Procedures is narrow and deep
Insite Job Request Form:
InForm > Job Request Forms > Form (2 clicks)
Policies and Procedures Safety Form:
InService > HR > Policy Guide > General Administration >
Operational Policies > Safety > Accident Reporting and
Investigation Plan > [Text] … Accident Report Form (7 clicks)

7. Card Sorts: What
• Participants sort “a series of cards, each labeled
with a piece of content or functionality, into
groups that make sense to” them
- Maurer & Warfel (2004), “Card sorting: a definitive guide”
• Closed card sorts
• Participants sort cards into predefined bins
• Open card sorts
• Participants sort cards and define bins

8. Card Sorts: Why
• “Card sorting is excellent for situations where
you want the users’ mental model to drive the
information architecture of the product.”
- Courage & Baxter (2005), “Understanding Your Users”
• “Open sorts are used for discovery. Closed sorts
are used for validation.”
- Rosenfeld & Morville (2006), “Information Architecture for the
World Wide Web”

9. Card Sorts: When
•Beginning of site creation
•Beginning of a site redesign
•Middle of a site redesign/creation

10. Card Sorts: Who
•Regarding users
• Recruit users familiar with the “lingo”
• But be cautious in a redesign with users who are
familiar with the website or application

11. Card Sorts: Where
•Lab
• Moderated
• Physical or online
•Remote
• Moderated or un-moderated
• Restricted to online

12. Card Sorts: How
•Physical
• Participants may be apt to put more
thought into sorting
•Online
• Cheaper
• Higher number of participants
• Eliminates data entry

13. Card Sorts: How
•Tools
• EZCalc
• MindCanvas
• OptimalSort
• SynCaps
• WebSort

14. Tools: Mind Canvas

15. Card Sorts: How
•Analysis
• More information to sift through with open sorts
• Dendrograms to see common groupings

16. Methodology
• Create and run an open card sort with 15 MP
employees, including follow-up interviews
• Analyze quantitative and qualitative data
• Make recommendations for a new navigational
hierarchy and structure

17. Open Card Sort
# Card name
1 Corporate Graphics
2 Floor Plans
3 Facilities and Locations
4 Contacts
5 Employee Directory
6 Corporate Travel
7 Glossary and Acronyms
8 Mission and Philosophy
9 Safety
10 Reimbursement
11 Payroll
12 Purchasing and Requisitions
13 Workplace Policies
14 Hiring and Employment
15 Benefits
16 Work Schedules
17 Personnel Records
18 Shipping and Distribution
19 Printing and Copying
20 Helpdesk
21 Forms
22 Computer and Networks
23 Corporate Marketing and Branding
24 Information Technology
25 Phone and Conferencing
26 Contracts
27 Wellness Programs
28 Diversity
29 In/Out Board
30 News and Announcements
31 Photo Gallery
32 Corporate Events
33 Department Sites
34 For New Employees
35 Workplace Conduct
36 Recognition and Accomplishments

18. Participant Demographics
P# Gender Department Used Insite?
0-5 6-10 IE Firefox Word processing Emailing Web Browsing
1 F Testing Services Y x x x x x
2 F Human Resources Y x x x x
3 M Client Services Y x x x x x
4 F Human Resources Y x x x x x
5 F Testing Services Y x x x x x
6 F Office of Technology Y x x x x x
7 F Finance Y x x x x x
8 M Testing Services Y x x x x x
9 F Client Services Y x x x x x
10 F Operational Services Y x x x x x
11 M Scoring Y x x x x x
12 F Process Coordination Y x x x x x
13 F Marketing Y x x x x x
14 F Client Services Y x x x x x
15 M Marketing Y x x x x x
Hours Per Week Web Browser for Insite? What Do You Do on a Computer?
• All 15 participants had experience using Insite.
• We had participants from 9 different departments.
• We had 4 men and 11 women.

19. Sample Open Card Sort Results:
Major Navigation Categories
WHAT I WANT TO USE
• Home Page
• Contracts
• Forms
WHAT I WANT TO REFER TO
• Department Sites
• Employee Directory
• Working at Measured Progress
• Helpdesk

20. Analysis of Results
•We began to see trends after the
first day of testing (5 participants)
Table 2. Main categories among first five participants.

21. Analysis of Results
•After all 15 card sorts were completed,
standardized the main categories.
•Gave categories “with similar names or
concepts a consistent name” and combined
“groups where participants used the same
basic concept but a slightly different label”
- Maurer (2007), “Instructions for Use: Card Sort Analysis
Spreadsheet”

22. Analysis of Results
• We started with 106 original categories from all 15
participants, and applied consistent naming
conventions.
Table 3. Standardized categories derived from original categories.

23. Analysis of Results
• Second, combined similar standardized categories
and arrived at a total of 13 standardized categories.
Table 4. Final list of 13 standardized categories.
0.67

25. Analysis of Results
Table 5. Mapping the dendrogram groupings to primary and
secondary navigation areas.

26. Analysis of Results
• “Mental image the user forms to understand how
software works and how to operate it”
- Arnowitz et al (2007), “Effective Prototyping for Software Makers”
• In the case of Insite, many participants in our card study
could not express a mental model of the website beyond the
use of “In” headings
• But many did express their mental model of the ideal
Measured Progress intranet. One participant noted:
• “There’s stuff there that people need to do their jobs.
They need a reference library for working at the
company… a big bookshelf of benefits and other
[information].”

27. Analysis of Results
• Participants wanted easier access to information
using primary, secondary, and third-level navigation
• Participants wanted a consistent navigational
structure, i.e., one that didn’t change.
• Participants wanted “HR Policies and Procedures”
broken into two separate categories:
• HR Forms (such as “Corporate Travel,” “Payroll,” “Requisitions”)
• HR Policies (such as “Diversity,” “Safety,” “Workplace Conduct”)

28. Analysis of Results
•Use a navigation hierarchy of medium depth
and breadth
• Use a primary navigation hierarchy of no more than 8 or 9
categories
• Go 3 or 4 levels deep
•Put Search at the top of every page
•Put Site Map link on every page

29. Recommendations

30. Recommendations

31. Next Steps
• Develop wire frames of all eight primary navigational categories.
• Present the wire frames to the design team.
• Develop paper prototypes of the Insite Home page and one other
subsection, such as HR.
• Test the usability of the paper prototypes with eight participants,
using task-based scenarios. For example: “You are going on a business
trip for Measured Progress. Using the web site, how would you
complete the pre-approval process for your trip?”
• Develop electronic versions of the Insite Home page and one other
subsection, such as HR.
• Test the usability of the electronic versions with eight participants,
using task-based scenarios, as discussed above.
• Redesign Insite based on results from the usability test.

32. Thank You
•Questions?