Card sorting is the classic technique used to get user involvement in the IA design process. It’s a
relatively straightforward technique that involves asking users to organize a deck of cards, each
labeled with a different category or content object, into groups. The groups represent “buckets”
that users feel contain similar things. This grouping exercise allows you to understand how users
expect things to be grouped, why they feel they should be grouped together, and how they would
label that group. How users group the content and the reasons they give reveal their mental models
of the subject area and helps ensure that the design is aligned with how users think about things.
See Chapter 13 to learn more about how mental models can be developed further into customer
experience maps.