UXSORT

Card Sorting Tool for User Experience and Marketing Managers
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UXSort v2.0.1 is available for free download

 

 

WHAT IS UXSORT? 

  

UXSORT is a card sorting tool that allows user experience professionals or marketing managers to plan card sorting activities, manage participants and cards, collect card sorting data, analyze data, and create a report.

 

Card sorting is a technique often used to determine collective categorization from different opinions of different people. It is widely used in user experience and marketing research to influence the definition of information architecture for computer program UI designs, terminology definition, market segementation, and many other applications.

 

 

 

The statistics method used in this program is cluster analysis. Thinking about cards as people in a family tree. When cards are sorted in a group like siblings, their mutiual distances are calculated as the shortest. Their distances to other cards in other groups are relatively longer. Siblings in the deepest family tree have the shortest mutual distances. Mutual distances become relatively longer for siblings when moving up the family tree (e.g., your grandma's siblings) , as these siblings have chilren - forming their own family.

 

 

 

The clustered result is reflected in a dendrogram. Be aware, the result may not reflect the reality and domain complexity. It is recommended the result be used as a tool to initiate converations with domain experts and users, and adjust accordingly.

 

UXSORT is developed by a UX professional to automate card sorting activities and view results immediately. It is designed for scalability - sorting  a large number of items (up to 1000 cards) onto a multi-level hierarchical structure.

 

UXSORT (v2.0.1.1, v2.0 beta, v1.7, v1.6, v1.5, v1.0) is free of charge. You are welcome to download and start to use it. If you find any issues with the tool, please feel free contact me. 

 

v2.0.1.1: this is the latest version as of 11/23/2011 with many fixes. 

 

v2.0 beta: this is the version as of 11/30/2010 with a SQL Server Compact Database in the backend to support data storage, and a Whiteboard to allow you to sort cards through drag-n-drop. The overall user interface is also simplified. The final version will be released around the end of the year or early next year.

 

New with v1.7: this is the version by 11/7/2009 with (a) a few bugs fixed, (b) distance matrix calculated with different weights for cards on different levels (defaulted to 10% down bucket levels), and (c) allow dendrograming on a single user's sorting data. For version 2.0, I will add a few features including handling missing values, user added cards, custom weights, custom color ring for dendrogram, and probably suggested grouping lables.  

 

 

 

FEATURES

 

 

UXSort 2.0.1.1:

  • SQL Server Compact Edition database backend support
  • Drag and drop to sort cards.
  • Simple report of results.
  • Import and export of data

Easy to use

  • Easy to manage cards, users and instruction: You may edit your cards in a Word document or Excel spreadsheet. You can copy all your cards and paste them to the card list.
  • Easy to sort cards: The user can drag-n-drop a card to a bucket created.

Scalability

  • Sort up to 1000 cards
  • Cards can be sorted into more than 2 levels deep.

Multiple sorting alogrithms

  • Support Single-Linkage, Complete-Linkage and Average-Linkage clustering methods
  • Support Squared Euclidean Distance, Euclidean Distance
  • You can play with the sorting alogrithms and view the dendrogram instaneously.

Reporting & Import and Export

  • Produce a report for your study with participant information and results.
  • Import or export data to ensure data security and merge data from distributed tests.

 

 

 

GET STARTED

 

Download:

  • Go to 
    download page.
  • Double-click to open up the zipped file downloaded (optional).
  • Click on Setup.exe to start the installation. Click Agree and Yes to install SQL Compact .
  • After the installation, you should see UXSort window popus up.
  • Or you can launch UXSort from Start->Programs->UXSort folder.

 

System Requirement:

  • Windows 7 preferred.
  • Windows XP, Vista,  .Net Framework 2.0 is required. 
  • Microsoft SQL Compact 3.5, Sp1, Sp2 (will be installed during UXSort setup)
  • Microsoft Installer (will be installed during UXSort setup)

 

Get Started:

  • When you click on uxsort .exe, uxsort application will show up.
  • Click on New Project to start a new project.
  • Click on Manage Card and add some cards to the list.
  • Click on Manage User and add some users to the list.
  • Click Run Card Sorting. Double click a user to start the card sorting session for that user.
  • The sorting window pops up. Group/sort the cards until no cards are left on the whiteboard. Exit and save data.
  • Once you have 1 or more users' card sorting data, you can run a cluster analysis and view the report.