“To be a great designer, you need to look a little deeper into how people think and act.”
– Paul Boag, Co-founder of Headscape Limited
But the question that arises in our mind is, “Why is User Research so important in Design”.
It is because it is the most vital component for designing any user experience. Typically carried out at the start of the project it holds different types of Research methodology for gathering data & feedback.
In a nutshell, UX Research means the difference between designing based on guesswork & assumptions & actually creating something that helps to solve the user’s problem. It also helps us to align our product & business strategy with the user’s core needs & goals.
Now, when you look at the IT Companies today focusing on Service Industry, the major challenge that they face is to complete & deliver projects on or before time. And in doing so,
they are not able to devote their key focus on the vital part of the project, which is the UX design.
The only 2 aspects that the client is most interested in is a) Timeline & b) Budget. The ultimate solution is the UX Research. With UX Research the company gets a crystal clear idea regarding the problems that are going to arise in future, so ultimately saving your time that could be more invested in the development process.
For UX Design the first thing very much needed is the right research of users and their needs.
So whenever any project is to be initialized, what we basically need is the right sitemap and the few techniques that can prove helpful.
The next step would be to pick a method that UX research could go with product development.
The renown Methods are:
- Card sorting
- Desk Research (Secondary Research) &
- Testing (Guerilla Testing)
For now, let’s just focus & learn about Card Sorting. The remaining two will discuss later (upcoming blogs)
This is the most cost-effective (Cheapest) method useful for small projects or module development. Sure, it needs the entire team’s participation and also takes some time 
But very useful!!
Let’s get a more clear idea with an example.
Let’s say the Team is working on an e-commerce website design and needs to fix the categories of products.
The Process needs participants who can be clients, Users or team members.
Products are: Jeans, Jacket, Sofa, Bedsheet, Curtains, Camera, Mobile, Headphone which are written on cards
(1_card_sorting)
There are basically two types of card sorting methods.
1.1 Open card sorting
1.2 Closed card sorting
1.1 Open Card Sorting
– In this method participants have to group similar kind of products based on properties and give a specific name to categories
– It may be possible that in this method participants can write the items first and then categorize them.
(2_card_sorting)
(3_card_sorting)
1.2 Closed Card Sorting
– In this method categories are already specified but participates have to put the card into the specific category
(4_card_sorting)
(5_card_sorting)
These methods can be useful as per the need. When the participants arranges the cards and categories you can analyze the user’s behavior and interest.
It primarily helps to:
- Build the structure for your website &
- Decide what to put on the homepage, Labels, categories, and navigation.
This technique is majorly used across the IT sectors but can be used in any situation.
Hope you got a clear understanding on the Card Sorting Method. That’s it for now.
In the next upcoming blog, we will discuss on the most used method called Desk Research
So stay tuned