All right, in this video we're gonna do something called an open card sort. Now what it means is, like in the last one we did, we did the kind of features list. And that works for some, um, you know, uh, some parts of the, uh, UX process for different products. A website was really good. Apps really good, but let's say it's something slightly different. You need a, you're rejigging your websites or new redesign, or you are adding lots of stuff to an existing kind of database or website and you need to kind of, um, group them in certain ways.
Um, a good way of doing it is like a nav. Thinking about as a navigation. Say you've got a navigation, you are an e-commerce site, and you are selling, um, you know, you're selling lots, you're an Amazon, eBay type thing, okay? Imagine them. They have to categorize stuff that people can find. They need to go through and say, you wanna buy a laptop?
It has to be stored somewhere. It has to be under, you know, um, computers, under laptops, under new, you know, there's kind of like a structure to that. Um, it also might be for, say, say you're developing something for like an airport kiosk or say a mall kiosk where you know, somebody has to kind of figure out, you know, they wanna buy women's shoes. Where do you group them? You know, do they go under fashion? Great.
Okay. Or do they go under footwear or, okay. It's just a way of kind of categorizing things and put them in order. You might have an idea, but you need to kind of work them out first. 'cause it's amazing the projects that I've worked on that I've thought what they should be in. And then you realize, 'cause uh, what, what we do in New Zealand where I'm from is very different.
And some of the languages are very different. Like, um, we're gonna do this one where we are dealing with vegetables and there's some things that we like. Uh, just an example. We call, um, things called capskin here in Ireland. They're called, um, peppers. And I kind of understand that, but I would definitely, if you New Zealand, there was a peppers, um, category.
You'd be looking for things like black crack pepper. Okay, but not capskin. 'cause they, they're not pepper. Okay? So, um, you know, it, it just helps you get the language and kind of ideas and group things out. So if you're doing a navigation for a site, or in case of this one, it's a supermarket checkout.
You know the bit where you're doing a self checkout and you're trying to find, you know, you've bought some random muffin and you can't find it anywhere. Or you've bought a vegetable and it's just not there. You can't find it. Okay? This kind of thing helps people get them in the right place. Okay?
So what you do is you list out all the things you need to categorize. In this case, we're gonna use a supermarket, um, analogy. You, you do yours for whatever you need to do. Okay? I've got loads in here. And what you need to do is break everybody into a group.
Okay? So if you've only got three people, then there's gonna be just three groups, okay? And if you've got loads more, um, you know, if you've, you might have to break people into peers, that's probably it. Okay? But 'cause what you wanna do is not get them all done. You want them to compare what that group decided the group names are and what that group is.
Will it make a little sense when we do stuff? Now, um, the problem with this, I guess is that, uh, you can't see, uh, the, um, they're a bit small, okay? The ones that I use for my, um, class, look, this is Lees broccoli, parsnips, garlic. And what you're doing is, as an example, is you start laying them out. You say garlic here, parsnips here. I'm gonna run outta space really quick.
I understand. Okay. So, uh, you, you, you got my group names, you can sit over there. It's parsnips, broccoli, leeks. Oh, I still feel like we haven't grouped them. I love that one.
Bleaches, leches. I have to Google that every time. I have no idea what that is. Okay? And that's a really handy one to have in throw in a few odd balls because it's, it's fun to, not fun, but it's like sometimes people just assume what they're called, okay? And you'll be like, no, no, that needs to be called something else.
It's known in this region. Is this, okay, so I have no idea. Here is at Google carrots and then I'm gonna go with parsnips, kind of a root vegetable type thing. And this is where you start going, okay, this group here now is gonna be called root vegetables. Okay? So I'm gonna grab my marker and I'm gonna call him root vegetables.
Okay? Root veggies. And what you're doing is you're looking for the, what the other groups call them. They might've categorized them differently. They might've put this, um, you know, I'm not sure what they would've put other than root vegetables, but they might've, okay, uh, mushrooms, where's that gonna go? Uh, maybe they've decided garlic and mushrooms go together.
Uh, chilies jam. So maybe chilies and garlic go together and they call this one maybe spices or you know, um, you might call this one condiments or what you're looking for is not the right answer. You're looking for lots of variation because one group might come up with spices and the other group come up with another name. And that's the beauty of this. You can go through and say, actually and discuss about what you should be calling them and what things ended up. So I've got onions.
They might go in with leeks 'cause they're kind of a, in my head, they're the same family and this is what you're gonna do. Oranges, fruit, fennel. We've got loads of in here and you're looking for groups. There'll be a couple of outliers. There'd be like this leches thing 'cause I don't even know what that is, okay. Sitting over here and, but somebody else might put it in a really good group and, you know, just renamed it and included this one in here and becomes very obvious.
Okay? It might be that names are not gonna work. You might find out that it's just too hard. You've got so many groups you're gonna have to use, um, images for, you know, as well as names. Okay? And that's what the idea of this card sort is about.
It's about getting the conversation going, making sure there's separate teams. Okay? You might be doing this by yourself and the two other people have the same, same printouts. Okay? And, but just coming up with different group names and kind of putting 'em together differently and, you know, all peers. And it is about working out what these kind of group names.
So that navigation, now I could, so for my supermarket checkout I could go through and, you know, have these kind of like home directories. And then, you know, you click, you click the little tap button and then these appear. And that's, that's the whole reason for this. Or it might be a navigation on a website. Um, yeah, so closed, uh, um, sorry, owner open card sort is uh, this way of doing. Now a closed card sort is something different.
What you do is you give people the group names already. Okay? So you give them uh, root vegetable spices and what you do is you say, I'd like you to place these in a group so you don't get to pick the names, okay? The users have to put them in, they have to try and find out which ones these gonna go into, okay? Because you might have an existing navigation that works and you don't wanna be rejigging the whole thing, okay? 'cause it's too much work.
You wanna just find in, say you've got all of these things, but these two are new, new objects, okay? Or new features or new things that you're gonna include. And what you need to do is find out where their home is so that way you can go through and they'll include them naturally and then it makes it easy for you to know where they have a home on your website or app or thing. Alright? So that is a closed card sort. And um, yeah, those are all kind of, uh, it's really useful for integrating stuff into an existing site.
I realize my hands kinda wave. I do this when I'm talking. It makes more sense when my hands are wiggling and you can see my face, but you can't. So hand wiggling it is, all right, I'll see you the next video.