Add a card sort

A card sort is an interactive exercise inside your question guide. Strella shows the participant a set of cards you wrote, and the participant drags each one into a group. It's the fastest way to learn how people naturally organize things: navigation labels, features, topics, or concepts.

Card sort is a Test element. Like a survey question, the participant interacts with it and submits an answer. Like a section, it holds follow-up questions of its own, which stay available while the sort is on screen. See Step types for how it sits alongside the other elements.

Steps

1. Add the card sort

   In Build, click + Add element and choose Card sort. Strella adds it to the guide like any other element, and its properties open on the right.

2. Choose how groups are defined

   A card sort works one of three ways. Pick the one that matches what you want to learn:

   • Open: participants create, name, and delete their own groups. Use this when you want to discover their mental model from scratch, without steering it. This is the default.
   • Closed: participants sort into groups you defined, and only those. Use this to test whether a structure you already have (say, a proposed navigation) holds up.
   • Hybrid: participants start with your groups but can add their own. Use this when you have a structure in mind but want to catch the buckets you missed.
3. Write the cards

   Add the cards participants will sort. Each card is a short label: a feature name, a topic, a menu item. Add at least one card. The guide flags the element as incomplete until you do.

   Keep labels short and parallel, and avoid wording that hints at where a card "should" go.

4. Define the groups (closed and hybrid only)

   For a closed or hybrid sort, add the group titles participants sort into. At least one is required. An open sort has no researcher-defined groups, because participants make their own. Skip this step for an open sort.

5. Add follow-up questions (optional)

   A card sort can hold its own follow-ups: open questions, tasks, statements, and survey questions. Drag them inside the card sort the way you'd nest steps in a section.

   The sort stays on screen while these run, so use them to ask why a participant grouped things the way they did, right after they finish.

What the participant sees

Strella shows the participant all the cards, and the participant drags each one into a group. In an open or hybrid sort they name their groups as they go and can rename or remove them. In a closed sort they drop cards into the groups you set. When they're done, they submit, and any follow-up questions you added run next.

Reading the results

Strella combines every sort into one card-by-group table and keeps each participant's own sort on their entry. See How participants sorted your cards for reading the results.

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