Avocado – Fruit, Vegetable, or Houseplant? Using a Card Sort to Improve Information Architecture

Presentation by Louise Carter
May 18, 2017

Communities Count   (Seattle)

Coming up with category names that make sense to a broad spectrum of data users is
always challenging, but a redesign of the King County government website turned
data searches into an unhappy succession of “Where’s Waldo?” challenges – with no
visual cues, no search function, and category names that could have been pulled out
of a hat. This sad situation presented a perfect opportunity for us to revisit longestablished
indicator and category names on both of our indicator websites. Engaging
participants from multiple disciplines and levels of technical sophistication, we used an
electronic Card Sort to learn how data users organize information.
Event Name: 
NNIP Partnership Meeting, May 2017