Card sort questions

Card sort questions ask participants to organize a set of cards into categories. This data helps you understand how people mentally group and relate concepts, which makes it valuable for information architecture research, navigation testing, and content organization studies.

When adding a card sort question, you have three options to choose from:

• Closed: Participants sort cards into researcher-defined categories only. Best for validating an existing categorical structure.
• Open: Participants create their own categories from scratch. Best for discovering how people naturally organize items. (Desktop studies only.)
• Hybrid card sort: Researchers provide starting categories, but participants can add their own. Best for iterative refinement when some structure exists but you want to surface gaps. (Desktop studies only.)

Regardless of your choice, participants must sort all cards before submitting their response.

Card sort question settings

When adding a card sort question to your mission, you’ll customize your question in the center of the builder:

Here's a breakdown of each option:

You'll access additional settings for card sort questions in the right sidebar:

Here's a breakdown of each option:

Add a card sort question to a study

You’ll add card sort questions on the Usability test/Media survey/Mission tab of your study.

To add a card sort question to a study:

1. Navigate to the Usability test/Media survey/Mission tab of your study.
2. Click + Add in the center of the builder or in the left sidebar.
   
   
3. Under Standard, select Card sort.
   
   
4. Enter the Prompt (instructions) you want to display to participants before they begin the card sort.
   
   
5. Select your card sort type in the right sidebar. You can choose Closed, Open, or Hybrid. See the table above for more information.
   
   
6. Add your Cards.
7. (Closed and hybrid only) Add your Categories.
   
   
8. (Optional) Enable randomization options in the right sidebar.
   
   
9. Click Done.

Now, you've successfully added a card sort question to your study. When participants reach this question, they'll see your instructions. Then, we'll instruct them on how to complete the card sort activity.

Analyze a card sort question

From the Responses tab of your study, you can view all responses to a card sort question at once or view how each individual participant responded.

Questions view

From the Questions view, you'll see how everyone in your study responded to a card sort question.

Here, you can choose from three views: Agreement matrix, Cards, and Categories.

Agreement matrix

Selecting Agreement matrix shows every card against every category. Each cell displays the count or percentage of participants who sorted that card into that category. Use this to quickly spot consensus (high agreement) and disagreement across your participant group:

Cards view

Selecting Cards lets you focus on one card at a time. For each card, you can see which categories it was sorted into, how many participants placed it there, and an agreement rating. Rows can be sorted by count, percentage, or agreement rating:

Categories view

Selecting Categories shows one category at a time. This lets you see which cards ended up in each category, along with counts and agreement ratings, which is particularly useful for open and hybrid sorts where categories were created by participants:

Merge categories (open and hybrid only)

In open and hybrid card sorts, categories created by participants are auto-merged if they have (case-insensitive) identical names. Merged categories are indicated with the following icon (two lines joining into an arrow):

However, you can also manually merge categories or unmerge categories.

To manually merge categories:

1. Select multiple categories on the Categories view.
2. Click Merge categories. A confirmation modal is displayed.
   
   
3. Verify you want to merge the categories displayed.
4. (Optional) Enter a Merged category name.
5. Click Merge x categories.
   
   

To unmerge categories:

1. Click the Edit (pencil) icon beside a category. The category's details are displayed.
   
   
2. Click the X beside any categories you want to unmerge.
   
   
3. Click Save.

Rename categories

From the Categories view, you can also rename categories for easier analysis.

To rename categories:

1. Click the Edit (pencil) icon beside a category. The category's details are displayed.
   
   
2. Enter a new Category name.
   
   
3. Click Save.

Participants view

From the Participants view, you'll see how individual participants in your study responded to a card sort question.