Card Sorting Tools: Final Summary

A summary of how IBM's USort/EzCalc and CardZort worked for results entry and analysis.

Maurer, Donna. DonnaM (2004). Articles>Usability>Methods>Card Sorting

Making Decisions About User Research

We know that we should do user research for projects. All the user-centred design material says so, we talk about it at conferences, we put it in proposals. We just know that it is a good thing to do. But when I talk to people about their actual projects, I find that very few people actually do user research. There are many many reasons (no time, no money, already know what users need etc etc etc). I think that part of the reason it doesn’t happen is also that we don’t have good tools to tell us just how much research to do, and even when it isn’t necessary at all to do research.

Spencer, Donna. DonnaM (2008). Articles>Research>Usability>User Centered Design

Yes, Information Architecture is Rocket Science

Why do I think there is some complexity to creating a good IA for a website, when to others it appears simple?

Spencer, Donna. DonnaM (2008). Articles>Information Design

Taking a Content Inventory

You take a content inventory because, before redesigning a website or intranet, you need to know what you have. This is especially important if you will be migrating your content to a new structure or new CMS - at some point you need to know every single content element.

Spenser, Donna. DonnaM (2006). Articles>Content Management>Web Design