Protocol
Let users group the content before naming the categories
The organisation chart is not the reader’s map.
When it fits
- Your category names reflect the project’s history more than readers’ needs.
When to avoid it
- Similarity judgements are not navigation success. Mixed audiences may need more than one route to the same content.
Why it matters
In an open card sort, participants group representative content and name the groups. Ask what belongs together and why. Use recurring patterns and disagreements to propose structures; do not turn one person’s arrangement into universal taxonomy.
Steps
- Prepare understandable content labels without embedding your preferred categories.
- Let participants group and name them, including uncertain or overlapping items.
- Compare the rationales, draft a hierarchy and test whether people can find real items in it.
An example
Readers place an exercise about asking for clarification beside communication skills rather than grammar theory. That is a categorisation hypothesis worth testing.
Check your result
Can you explain which user grouping evidence led to each proposed category?
Keep this limit in mind
- Similarity judgements are not navigation success. Mixed audiences may need more than one route to the same content.
Evidence and sources
Supports
Open card sorting asks participants to group content and name their groups.
Preferred groupings do not prove that users can find an item in a finished menu.
Card Sorting: Uncover Users’ Mental Models · Open card sorting definition.