Making it tangible: hybrid card sorting within qualitative interviews

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2018-0091
Date06 March 2019
Published date06 March 2019
Pages397-416
AuthorLettie Y. Conrad,Virginia M. Tucker
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet
Making it tangible:
hybrid card sorting within
qualitative interviews
Lettie Y. Conrad
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, and
Virginia M. Tucker
School of Information, San José State University, San Jose, California, USA
Abstract
Purpose Qualitative researchers and information practitioners often investigate questions that probe the
underlying mental models, nuanced perspectives, emotions and experiences of their target populations.
The in-depth qualitative interview is a dominant method for such investigations and the purpose of this paper
is to demonstrate how incorporating hybrid card-sorting activities into interviews can enable deeper
participant reflections and generate rich data sets to increase understanding.
Design/methodology/approach Following a review of relevant literature, the case illustration presented is a
grounded theory study into the student-researcher information experience with personal academic information
management. This study uses hybrid card sorting within in-depth, semi-structured interviews, a unique
adaptation that extends multi-disciplinary awareness of the benefits of card-sort exercises for qualitative research.
Findings Emerging from diverse fields, ranging from computer science, engineering, psychology and
humancomputer interaction, card sorting seeks to illuminate how participants understand and organise
concepts. The case illustration draws largely on methods used in interaction design and information
architecture. Using either open or fixed designs, or hybrid variations, card-sort activities can make abstract
concepts more tangible for participants, offering investigators a new approach to interview questions with the
aid of this interactive, object-based technique.
Originality/value Opening with a comprehensive review of card-sort studies, the authors present an
information experience case illustration that demonstrates the rich data generated by hybrid card sorting
within qualitative interviews, or interactive interviews. This is followed by discussion of the types of research
questions that may benefit from this original method.
Keywords Information experience, Semi-structured interviews, Qualitative research methods,
Card sorting, Information research methods, Information user research
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Card sorting is an interactive research method that aims to illuminate how participants
understand and organise concepts. Often used in information architecture (IA) during software
and systems design, card sorting has the potential to enrich qualitative interview studies in a
range of disciplines. This paper presents an overview of card-sort research techniques in the
form of a literature review. This foundation allows for a case illustration of card-sorting
activities used in an information science doctoral examination of graduate student information
experiences with personal information management. The paper concludes with reflections on
how interview studies in qualitative research can bene fit from hybrid card-sort exercises,
extending our collective understanding of this lesser used object-based method.
Card-sort techniques employed by researchers involve soliciting interview responses
from participants who are asked to sort index cards into categories. In most research
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 75 No. 2, 2019
pp. 397-416
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-06-2018-0091
Received 8 June 2018
Revised 14 October 2018
Accepted 17 October 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The authors are grateful to information architecture and user experience experts for bringing the
card-sort method to researchers like the authors. The authors also thank the San José Gateway PhD
community, in particular Drs Mary Somerville and Guy Gable, for inspiration, feedback, and
suggestions that helped to shape this paper. Ethics clearance and permission to use participants
anonymised interview data are in accordance with QUT Low Risk Research Approval #1600000992.
397
Hybrid card
sorting
settings, the card labels as well as the sorting categories can be defined by the researcher
(referred to as fixed card sorts) or can be defined by the participant (open card sorts); some
studies use a hybrid combination of fixed and open card sorts, or a phased approach using
both fixed and open sorts at different times. Terminology and card-sort design, as well as
how card-sort data are recorded and analysed, varies by discipline and related practices in
psychology, education and political science, as outlined below. This paper focuses on the use
and benefits of interactive interviews, where card sorting is used to enrich qualitative
interviews in the information sciences. Adapted from IA practices and information user
research, card-sort activities during interviews can help externalise participant thoughts
and feelings, making abstract concepts more tangible for both participant and researcher.
2. Card sorting as research method
In the broadest context within the social sciences, sorting or card sorting is a participatory
research method that aims to engage participants in co-development of conceptual categories
and definitions, and to illuminate their approach to and organisation of the topics at hand
(Coxen, 2004; George, 2008). Within the software and computer design fields, specifically in IA
development for a website or database, card sorting is a quick, inexpensive, and reliable
method(Spencer, 2004, para. 4) for optimising a systems usability. Card sorting aims to reveal
the mental models of those using an information system, or how participants relate and
categorize concepts(Goodman et al.,2012,p.202).
In the IA tradition, card-sort studies inform system and interface design with the assumption
that a working understanding of how users envision the organisation of content will result
in efficient, effective information products (Rosenfeld et al., 2015; Spencer, 2009). Where IA is
the practice of effectively organizing, structuring, and labelling the content of a website or
application into a structure that enables efficient navigation(Righi et al., 2013, p. 69), card sorts
are a supporting research method that informs an effective structure with direct input from
information system users. With the aim of developing usable products and services that meet
information needs, card sorting canbe defined as a participatory design technique that you can
use to explore how participants group items into categories and relate concepts to one another
(Martin et al., 2012, p. 26). As such, card sorting is one of three recommended methods in the
internationally ratified standards for assessing a controlled vocabulary (ANSI/NISO, 2010) and
a common method of structuring information in IA practice, to support information access.
In this context, card-sort activities are used for affinity modelling, where data from a
representative sample of users are analysed and clustered by similarity or consensus. Card
sorting is often noted as a key research technique for ensuring content navigation and
findability within an information system (Chowdhury and Chowdhury, 2011), in particular to
bring a user-centric influence on design (Bar-Ilan and Belous, 2007; George, 2008).
The card sort methodis used in design sciences and softwaredevelopment, where research
often aims to test and inform website structures and labelling to ensure that interfaces are
aligned with end-user needs, behaviour and cultural or conceptual contexts. Card sorting is
meant to provide insight into usersmental models, illuminating the way that they often
tacitly group, sortand label tasks and content within their own heads(Rosenfeld et al., 2015,
p. 344). In this way, cards are used as props or artefacts that allow research participants to
physicallyinteract with ideas representedby the cards as they are sorted or groupedby theme
or category. Sometypes of card-sort activities can alsobe achieved online, enabling accessto
larger populationsand an option for follow-upor phased data gathering withdigital card sorts
(see Box 1). Whether conducted in person or virtually, with physical or digital cards,
qualitative studies in domains such as library and information sciences (LISs), engineering,
psychology and education have used card-sort activities to elicit additional reflections from
participants, widening the investigators lens into participantscontexts, perspectives and
mental models (Ford, 2013; Lyon et al., 2016; McTavish, 2015; Noc and Žumer, 2014).
398
JD
75,2

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