One of the ever-popular posts on our blog includes this simple name plate template that you can download and use to print out name plates for your workshop attendees.
I thought I’d share another little template that’s saved us a lot of time over the past couple of years. This one’s for printing out cards for your card sorting exercise and here’s how to use it:
- Prepare a list of topics you want to include in your sort, typically no more than 100-150.
- Paste your topics into the template below. Paste Special > Unformatted Text works best.
- Restore cell alignment if necessary: Select Table > Select > Table and right-click > Cell Alignment > Align Center
- Print out your cards, in multiple copies if required.
- Cut your cards. I highly recommend using a guillotine paper cutter. Watch out for paper cuts…
- Shuffle the cards to randomise them and run your card sorting exercise.
- Use a digital camera to document the resulting structure.
The menu paths above assume Microsoft Word but you should be able to open the template in other applications such as OpenOffice Writer.
I hope this makes preparing for your card sorts that little bit quicker! And of course, once you have your draft IA ready don’t forget to test it with your target audience 🙂
Download the card template
Download card template as an RTF document (45 KB, paper size A4). You can open and edit it in your favourite word processing application such as Microsoft Word.Here’s what the template looks like:
Related resources
- Poster: Card sorting guidelines for participants
- Naview – Create easier navigations through prototyping and testing
- Card sorting software tools on the companion website to Card Sorting – Designing Usable Categories by Donna Spencer
