Three tips for intranet card sorting
Information architecture IntranetThere’s loads of great resources on the internet to help you plan for a card sort. My favourite for detailed instructions is the US Government’s Usability website.
But while these resources are helpful, intranets have their own quirks when it comes to card sorting.
Here’s my top tips for planning an intranet open card sort.
1. Invite the right people
It’s tempting to use volunteers from your corporate functions (human resources, finance, etc). They are usually happy to participate and are important users of the intranet. They are – however – also more familiar with organisation structure and have a tendency to want to group and label things by the teams who are responsible for that activity.
While that might seem like a good idea on the surface, anyone outside those functions may struggle to find things in the resulting IA.
Depending on the project, you may want to exclude corporate staff or at least ensure operational employees have good representation. If you invite corporate staff make sure you encourage all participants to voice their opinion.
And while you’re inviting participants, invite more than you need. Things crop up – people are sick, urgent work needs to be done. Always invite a few extra people so that your groups aren’t too small.
2. Don’t let people group things by type of document
It’s pretty standard practice to have a central library of ‘official’ documents (policies, procedures, etc) on an intranet. These documents should be linked to from both the relevant topic page/s and this central library, giving users at least two different paths to find them.
Your card sort participants may want to put all the policies and procedures together, but that’s not particularly helpful if you’re already planning to create a central library.
So once someone suggests grouping documents by type (e.g. “Hey, let’s put all the policies together!”) I follow these steps:
- Make note of anything that’s said that could feed into the site’s metadata scheme.
- Wait until the topic is exhausted.
- Acknowledge it’s a great idea.
- Ask participants to group the cards another way (usually to some groans).
3. Stagger your instructions
At the beginning of the session I’ll give a very brief overview of the process but I find it’s easiest for participants if you instruct them one step at a time:
- Group the cards.
- Review the groups to see if they make sense (once the cards are grouped).
- Label the groups (once the groups have been reviewed).
I also wait until the first time participants hit a card where they are unsure of its meaning to tell them to infer the meaning. Too many instructions at once can make the activity seem a little overwhelming, especially if the group is faced with a significant number of cards.
One final (personal) note
With the best will in the world, it can sometimes be frustrating to watch participants group things in seemingly illogical ways. This isn’t specific to intranet card sorts, but it’s helpful to remind yourself before you kick-off your session. I’ve seen some facilitators unconsciously lead the group in a particular direction and in my first few card sorts I was a little guilty of that too.
