Card Sort

The key to encouraging Web site conversions is to think like a user. A card sort exercise gets into your user’s heads, and allows you to see how they think the information on your Web site should be organized and how the navigational items should be labeled. Far too many organizations organize their Web site in a way that reflects their internal structure and terminology. This leads to user frustration, missed conversions and poor SEO rankings. Thanks to card sorting, you can minimize these lost opportunity costs.

Some projects may require multiple rounds of card sorting; Acro Media specializes in both open and closed card sorting exercises. A marketing specialist assesses your organization’s specific needs and formulates a card sort plan that will produce the best results for you.

Process

To perform a card exercise, Acro Media follows these steps:

• Conduct a thorough content inventory of the existing site
• Prepare cards and descriptions that reflect the site content
• Deploy the card sort exercise to the selected participants
• Analyze the results
• Compile the findings and make recommendations to guide the development of the Information Architecture

Benefits

The benefits of a cord sort include:

• Improve the findability of your site by ensuring that your content matches the terms that users are actually searching for in the search engines.
• Enhance the user’s onsite experience and maximize conversions by making information easier and quicker to find.
• Plan an effective navigation scheme at the outset of the project before such major structural changes become costly to make.