Card sorting reveals how users naturally group and categorize content, building a content hierarchy and naming conventions that suit users expectations.. In card sorting, participants sort “cards” (page titles/content) into groups matching their way of thinking. In open / hybrid card sort, participants are expected to name the grouping they create.

These Card sort types are designed to meet specific needs of your content / information structuring goals.

• Closed Card Sort : Best suited when the category structure already exists and it needs validation. A tree test does a similar job and is recommended to be used instead.
• Open Card Sort : Used when starting to build information hierarchy from scratch. Since participants are allowed to create and name categories on their own, it opens up new ideas related to grouping and labelling of information. This is the most common and popular type of card sort among UX researchers and information architects.
• Hybrid Card Sort : Least used among the three types of card sort due to potentially biased results. The bias is caused due to some predefined categories based on which participants define the new categories too.

UXArmy platform supports all three types of Card sort with drag-drop of cards, category groups and analytics.

Online Card sort is a quantitative exercise. Aim for 20-30 users per user segment.
It’s important to limit the number of cards as well to a recommended 30 – 40 cards per user else fatigue sets in after that.

UXArmy leads 2025 card sorting tools for teams needing integrated UX workflows, offering open/closed/hybrid sorting, image cards, 15+ languages, and 1,500 free self-sourced responses/month via pooled credits, covering card sorting + tree testing + surveys in one platform. OptimalSort excels in standalone IA with dendrograms/similarity matrices but lacks multi-method support, while UserTesting’s card sorting requires enterprise contracts.

Free plan: 1,500 self-sourced responses/month across card sorting + tree testing. No limits on the number of Cards or Card Sort tests that you create. Pro plans from $29/mo with pooled credits for all research methods.

Yes, upload images per card with flexible positioning to mirror actual card labels.

Remote vs in-person card sorting, which is better?
Remote wins for scale (global recruitment, analytics) whereas in-person needs logistics e.g. research venue, preparation of cards. Manual gathering and sense-making of thoughts and card sort work done by each participant quickly adds up to the amount of work needed for analysis. This becomes a disadvantage in case of tight timelines, geographically dispersed participants or tight project budgets.

Yes, UXArmy supports pre/post survey questions with images + screening logic alongside card sorting, thus providing richer insights.

Card sorting lacks real-world context. Why? Participants organize isolated content labels without the surrounding layout, visuals, or links that actually influence navigation. It also reveals only high-level groupings and not deeper hierarchies or full navigation paths. Large numbers of cards can cause participant fatigue, leading to multiple ambiguous “miscellaneous” categories, and those results can be difficult to interpret due to significantly differing mental models. Card sort does not take into account sub-categories, it creates only one level of categorisation.

Card sorting: Discover groupings / labels in alignment to how users think and see the world (supposed to be the first Step unless you have time trusted labelling and grouping of information and are only focused on findability).

Tree testing: Follows Card Sort to validate findability in a content hierarchy established via Card Sort. Therefore it’s almost always the second step while defining information architecture.

UXArmy pooled credits let you run both types of studies seamlessly.