Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories - Softcover

Spencer, Donna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1933820020 ISBN 13: 9781933820026

Publisher: Rosenfeld Media, 2009

Synopsis

Card sorting is an effective, easy-to-use method for understanding how people think about content and categories. It helps you create information that is easy to find and understand. In "Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories," Donna Spencer shows you how to plan and run a card sort, analyze the results, and apply the outcomes to your projects.

TESTIMONIALS

"This is a wonderful book on a much-needed topic. While card sorting is a basic tool of the trade, it's previously received short-shrift in any practical publication. Donna's done an amazing job explaining (in easy-to-understand terms) what every designer, architect, and researcher should know about the ins-and-outs of card sorting. (You might need to buy two copies, because I guarantee someone will borrow your first copy and never return it.)"."
Jared M. Spool, CEO and Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering

"This book is a fresh, clear, practical explanation of the value of card-sorting, how to do it, and how to use the results. Spencer mixes step-by-step instructions and good examples with just enough theory. You'll emerge from this book with new skills to create great user-centered information architectures--and smart responses to tricky questions from pesky stakeholders."."
Tamara Adlin, Founding Partner, Fell Swoop, and co-author of The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design

"I wish we had this book when we first started doing card sorting. It's a fantastic handbook that is full of very practical advice and examples from Donna's extensive experience. We will be recommending it to all our customers."."
Sam Ng, Creator of online card sorting tool OptimalSort

"Donna has put together the definitive work on card sorting, a must have tool for all information architects. If you want to plan, run and analyse your own card sorts, this book has it all."."
Andy Budd, User Experience Director, Clearleft

About this title

About the Author

Donna Spencer is a freelance information architect, interaction designer, and writer. That means she is responsible for what you see on the computer screen—website navigation, applications, forms, categories, and words. She works mostly on large, messy projects like government websites and intranets, internal business applications, and web applications. But sometimes she gets to work on funky, small projects and likes them just as much. Some of her projects take months to do, and sometimes she works with agile programming teams to do small amounts of work in short bursts. One of the most important parts of her work is to get a good understanding of the needs of the users and make sure the system she's working on is as usable as possible. Given that she's quite fond of people, she loves doing user research and running usability tests to understand the people she's designing for. She also sketches screens, draws wireframes, and makes prototypes. But Donna likes something even more than designing usable systems. She loves teaching. She's a very experienced speaker and regularly teaches workshops at conferences and in-house. She also presents at local and international conferences on the topics of information architecture, interaction design, the Web, writing, and more.

Review

Card Sorting is a great book if you are interested in running a card sort on your next project but you're hesitant either because you re unfamiliar or have had a bad experience with card sorting in the past. It really is a fail-proof recipe. --The Designer's Review of Books

If you are a user experience or information management professional and just want to learn or improve your card sorting, then this book is a must have for your bookshelf. --Gary Barber, Man With No Blog

Card Sorting should prove to be an ideal book for new practitioners—or those new to the card sort—as the organization of the material begins with some basic theory, and works its way through an entire card sort. The narrative-based examples, supplemented by illustrative photos and spreadsheets, are clear and easy-to-follow. For example, the chapter on choosing between an open or closed card sort shows some of the more common software interfaces, populated with typical card sort content. Also, each chapter ends with a Summary/Tips section that captures its highlights, reminding readers of the salient points. --STC UUX Newsletter

If you are a user experience or information management professional and just want to learn or improve your card sorting, then this book is a must have for your bookshelf. --Gary Barber, Man With No Blog

Card Sorting should prove to be an ideal book for new practitioners—or those new to the card sort—as the organization of the material begins with some basic theory, and works its way through an entire card sort. The narrative-based examples, supplemented by illustrative photos and spreadsheets, are clear and easy-to-follow. For example, the chapter on choosing between an open or closed card sort shows some of the more common software interfaces, populated with typical card sort content. Also, each chapter ends with a Summary/Tips section that captures its highlights, reminding readers of the salient points. --STC UUX Newsletter

Edition details

• Publisher: Rosenfeld Media
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1933820020
• ISBN 13: 9781933820026
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 162