New OptimalSort! Over the past few months we have completely overhauled the participant experience for OptimalSort. Those in the know may have noticed that a beta version has been available for opt-in for a few months. Today I am excited to say that the shiny new OptimalSort is now out of beta. Runs on your tablet (no Flash required!) How about some moderated card sorting around the office, in the lab, or out on the street guerrilla style? Now you… Read More »

One of the golden rules of business is to make it easy for your customers to deal with you. This really is what we at Optimal Workshop are all about, I guess. I mean this both in terms of the tools and services we provide and the reason that our customers are using our tools; to make things easier. In my role as Accounts Manager I work hard to ensure that our customers can pay us efficiently. If we extrapolate… Read More »

People often ask about what to put on their cards to get the best results from a card sort with OptimalSort. We have some guidelines we use for our own card sorting activities. So here they are: Guidelines: Be consistent in the casing of the card labels It is quite common to see participants assume that card labels that have all their words start with a capital letter must be a higher level heading for something. Cards should not suggest… Read More »

As Scott Smith wrote in his article “Why do People Participate as Respondents in a Survey?” there are several behavioural theories that underlie people’s decisions to respond to surveys. Here’s some of our thoughts about people’s motivations for responding to surveys. I’d love to take the time to do some real analysis on this topic, but for now please take it as it is; some of our thoughts. If you have thoughts of your own, please add them in the comments!… Read More »

You’re almost ready to test your IA. You’ve already done a little user research. You’ve brainstormed with your team and consulted a range of stakeholders. You’ve even reviewed your analytics and tried to derive what people were trying to achieve when they did what they did. Now that you’ve done all this and come up with a list of common tasks worth testing you stroke your beard (imaginary or real) and ponder to yourself: Will these tasks adequately test my… Read More »