Week 5 Exercise

20.05.2024 / Week 05
Michael Chan Henn Loong / 0363611
Application Design / BA of Design (HONS) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Exercise

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LECTURES

Fig 1.0, Card Sorting Method, (22.05.2024)

In this week Mr. Zeon gave us a small lecture about the card sorting systems and also how the wild cards works. Card sorting is a powerful method that can be used by researchers to how users personalizes their preferences and how would they like their interfaces arrange, it helps with determining an organizing scheme that aligns with the users.

The card sorting system provides users with sets of cards that contains information that will be used in the app like a page tittle or menu item or categories

Fig 1.1, Types of card sorting method, (22.05.2024)

There are 6 types of card sorting systems open, closed, hybrid and remote there's also moderated and unmoderated sessions. For moderated there must be a facilitator present at the session to study what, why and how the users organizes the cards. As for unmoderated it would be much more easier as there's no needed of a facilitator, its a quantitative data collection and it's much more faster and less expensive as there's no need of transportation or anything else, the whole session will be held online and cards will be provided and all the users need to do is organize the cards and there will be no communications throughout the sessions.

Open card sorting

In open card sorting users create their own categories as no predefined categories are involved so the researchers get to know how the users organize the information.

Closed card sorting

As in closed card sorting categories are provided all the users need to do is sort the cards into predesigned categories, this type is useful for testing out specific groupings and ideally used when there's a base structure existing.

Hybrid card sorting

Hybrid card sorting is more interesting as it blends in both open and closed card sorting but also provides the researcher and users to apply predesigned categories and also users can create new groups and sort the cards into them.

Hybrid system provides the flexibility, insight and user centric design that the researcher needs which benefits in capturing the users language, identifies the lacking of the design and also enhances the creativity of the design.

Remote card sorting

In remote card sorting is done online as it's more convenient and easier for both the users and researcher and it can be done with a broader range of audience.

Pros & Cons of Card Sorting

Card sorting is easy to use and it's cost effectiveness is definitely higher then other systems as it only requires a minimal set up and budget for making renting a room or just cost for the petrol. It's also a efficient way to gather data as it can be conducted in a short period and direct participation of users helps with creating interfaces that are more aligned with the users expectation.

As for the cons it depends highly on the users knowledge background on the app and design itself, and as the system focuses on how the users categorize the cards researchers might overlook important aspects like the flow or functionality. Lastly the data analyzing part might be time consuming as each users have their own unique way of adhering the cards which leads to diversion of the results.

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INSTRUCTIONS

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After the lecture from Mr. Zeon, he gave us a group activity topic on a travel planning mobile app scenario in us designing the mobile app that helps users in planning and organizing their travel itineraries efficiently. giving us the features of the apps and also explanation of them so that it's easier for us to understand it.

Mr. Zeon asked us to create our own category and we are also allowed to create new category and features on our own to improve and improvise the app more so for me it's more like a hybrid card sorting.

Fig 2.0, Group Photo, (22.05.2024)

This is the photo of group we took a picture after the activity and used it for our blog e-portfolio our group members are Yama, Justin, Michael and Nathan.

Fig 2.1, Card Sorting, (22.05.2024)

The whole process of the card sorting is fine everyone did their jobs by providing their insights and stuff but we had some problems and diversion on where to put the currency converter and expense tracker as some of us thought it should be under another section, but after few discussions we get to finalize our opinions and produced Fig 2.1.

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REFLECTION

The whole activity is fun, I learned that sometimes our ideas are not the modest and sometimes taking others opinions the design can better and with different approaches of apps in our daily life can affect our design knowledge and wireframes as well.