Card Sorting

Card Sorting

Learn how to use card sorting to understand how participants organize and categorize information.

What Is Card Sorting?

Card sorting is a usability research method that helps you uncover how people naturally group and label information. Participants are asked to organize “cards” (representing features, topics, or items) into categories that make sense to them.

This exercise helps you understand users’ mental models—how they expect information to be structured—so you can make better decisions about navigation, content hierarchy, and naming conventions.

Why It Matters

Card sorting gives you direct insight into how your users think about and relate to your product’s information. Instead of guessing how to structure menus, pages, or features, you can see how participants actually categorize them.

This method reduces cognitive friction in your designs by ensuring your information architecture matches user expectations. Whether you’re redesigning navigation, validating feature organization, or refining terminology, card sorting brings clarity and evidence to your design decisions.

Common Use Cases

How to Set Up Card Sorting

Step 1: Create Your Study

1. Navigate to Studies in the left-side menu.
2. Click New study and select Card Sort.
3. Configure study details, including:
   • Title and research goal
   • Participation limit
   • Participant segments (optional)
   • Time commitment
   • External recruitment (optional)
   • Incentives (optional)
   • Screener questions (optional)
   • Consent form
   • Custom study attributes
   • Automatic slot release settings
   • Participant language preferences
4. Review your plan, then click Next.

Step 2: Set Up Your Screener (Optional)

• Add multiple-choice, text, or scale questions using the screener editor.
• Apply logic under Preferences or view full rules under All Logic.
• Review and click Next.

Step 3: Configure External Recruitment (Optional)

If using User Interviews for sourcing:

1. Enter participant count, request title, description, and recruitment criteria.
2. Review and click Next.

Step 4: Build Your Test Flow

Unmoderated tests are created using blocks — each representing a step in the participant’s experience.

Permissions Setup

When adding/editing the Permissions block:

• Choose which inputs to capture: Screen, Microphone, Camera.
• Specify Device Type (Desktop or Mobile).
• Select a Layout Style (Instructions at bottom-left or top).
• Enable “Thinking out loud” reminders to prompt engagement.
• Restrict recording to current browser tab for privacy.

Card Sort Block

Use this block to understand how participants organize and categorize information.

You can choose the card sorting type:

• Closed: You define the categories; participants must sort cards into these predefined groups.
• Open: Participants create their own categories, revealing their natural thought process.
• Hybrid: You provide initial categories, but participants can add new ones if needed.

You can create your cards:

• Add the features, topics, or items you want participants to categorize.
  • Keep labels clear and concise—use short phrases or single words.
• Optional settings:
  • Enable Require participants to sort all cards (recommended).
  • Enable Randomize display order to minimize bias.

(For Closed & Hybrid Sorts) Add Your Categories:

• Create the categories you want participants to use.
• Optionally randomize category order for each participant.

Add or Duplicate Card Sort Tasks

• Add multiple card sorts if you want participants to complete more than one sorting exercise.
• Drag and drop cards and categories using the ⁝⁝ icon to rearrange order as needed.
• Use the ⋯ (more menu) to duplicate and edit existing blocks.

Step 5: Review and Publish

Check all sections for accuracy. When ready, click Create to publish your study.

Managing Your Study After Publishing

Once your Card Sort is live, there are several areas you may want to configure or monitor before and after inviting participants. These actions fall into three categories: Setup, Execution, and Results.

Setup

These areas help you fine‑tune your study before inviting participants.

Plan

Return to the Plan step anytime to adjust details such as participant limits, incentives, study attributes, or segments.

Test

You can view your test and make any adjustments necessary.

Incentives (if applicable)

Manage incentive settings and make any adjustments necessary.

Screener (if applicable)

You can edit screener questions or update logic if your qualification criteria change.

Emails

Customize participant-facing communications—including screener invitations, study invites, task reminders, and completion emails.

Pages

Update the Landing Page and Screener Disqualification Page to ensure participants receive the correct instructions and messaging.

Automations (Unmoderated Studies Only)

Enable automatic reminders to streamline participation:

• Send invitation reminders to candidates who have not responded within 24 hours.
• Send task reminders to participants who have not completed the test after 24 hours.

Notifications

Choose which email alerts you want to receive related to this study.

Execution

Once the study is live, these sections help you manage participants and monitor activity.

Participants

Add candidates, track their progress, and take actions such as inviting, removing, or reviewing participant status. This is where most post-publish activity takes place.

Recruitment Requests (if applicable)

Manage recruit requests and make any adjustments necessary.

Stats

View email performance metrics such as delivery, opens, and clicks.

Screener Responses (if applicable)

Review individual or aggregate responses to your screener questions to determine eligibility.

Results

Use these areas for analysis and reporting.

Tags

Organize your study and global tags and assign grouping if applicable.

Synthesis

Group your highlights to identify themes.

Repository

View the artifacts related to this specific study.

Summary

The Summary view gives you both a high-level and participant-level view of your Card Sort results, making it easy to evaluate overall navigation performance and spot problem areas quickly.

What you can see

When viewing overall results, you’ll find key metrics including:

• Overall agreement — Average agreement rate for all cards and categories.
• Complete rate — The percentage of participants who completed the task.
• Cards — Number of cards in the task that needed to be sorted.
• Average categories per response — The average number of categories that each participant used to sort the cards.
• Average categories per response — Average amount of time it took for participants to sort all the cards.

Exporting results

• Use the Export CSV button at the top of the Summary to download a CSV that includes the participant's name, email and their answers.

• Use the Export CSV button in the results table to download a CSV of the results.

How to Troubleshoot Card Sorting

Still need help?

Reach out to us anytime in the app or email us at [email protected]!