RE: Card sorting!!!

Peter -

While I agree that there are some similarities between card sorting and affinity diagramming, I don't think that one lead to the other. Affinity diagramming comes from the KJ Method which was only invented in the 1960s. Philosophers, psychologists and information scientists (in various guises) have been categorising concepts for many hundreds of years before that. In fact, even the methods of cluster analysis and tree diagrams commonly used to process card sorts predate the KJ Method (although they came after Aristotle<g>).

Also, there are some very important differences between card sorting and affinity diagramming. As it happens, I cover these in my web design course at CHI 2009 in Boston - see http://chi2009.org/Attending/AdvanceProgram/courseC119.htm 

Basically, card sorting is trying to investigate categories and terminology while affinity diagramming is much more about concepts, descriptions and the voice of the customer (at least as practised by Karen Holtzblatt and her colleagues). Anyone interested in affinity diagramming should have a look at Jared Spools web page on the subject (http://www.uie.com/articles/kj_technique/) and either a Karen Holtzblatt's books on contextual design.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
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Advances in Card Sorting - One Day Workshop
 - London, 21 April 2009
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Capell [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: 03 March 2009 15:19
> To: UCD
> Subject: RE: Card sorting!!!
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Card sorting is apparently a slight modification to "affinity
> diagramming" about which there is much (older) literature in the area
> of "meeting management." I think it is a very powerful technique (when
> the group/team/users are cooperative). Often it is coupled with first a
> session of brainstorming, which when conducted by the rules is a very
> helpful adjunct. There are even permutations of brainstorming/card
> sorting (affinity diagramming) called "nominal group technique" which
> allows for differences in personality type.
> 
>  Peter
> 


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