Card Sorting

Card Sorting is a user research method where participants group content or items into categories that make sense to them. It helps designers understand users’ mental models and informs the organization of navigation, menus, or content hierarchies. This technique is particularly useful for information architecture and content strategy.

Card sorting is the fastest way to discover that your navigation makes sense to you but not to your users. Founders often structure products around how they built them — card sorting reveals how users actually think about the information. Running even 5 card sorting sessions before finalizing navigation can prevent expensive rearchitecting later.

A SaaS analytics company ran card sorting before redesigning their settings page and discovered users grouped 'Integrations,' 'API Keys,' and 'Webhooks' together — even though the product had them in three separate sections — leading to a consolidated Developer Settings tab that halved support tickets about finding API settings.