Validation of terminology (Card-Sorting Test)

The card-sorting test is used to check how well terminology is understood.

Users are shown a deck of shuffled cards that contain concepts or labels that will be used on a product.

Users are asked to use their own judgement in grouping the cards.

This technique is fast and inexpensive, and is an ideal method for quickly designing or validating the information structure and the proposed terminology. The test can be conducted by the designers themselves, or with the help of 5 to 10 participants, each of whom performs the test alone.