Card Sort Survey Questions

Card sort questions ask respondents to drag a set of cards into categories. They are useful for information architecture research, taxonomy and mental-model studies, message or concept categorization, and any task where you want to learn how people naturally group items rather than imposing a scale on each one individually.

Use card sort when grouping is the construct of interest. If respondents only need to rate or rank items individually, use Grid Matrix or Ranking instead.

• Cards: the items respondents sort.
• Categories: the buckets cards can be dropped into.
• Closed sort: respondents use only the categories you define.
• Open / hybrid sort: allow respondents to add their own categories when you want to learn what groupings people invent, not just confirm your own. A Character limit caps the length of custom category names, and those names go through the gibberish and duplicate-text quality checks.
• Card and category order: keep the order fixed, shuffle it per respondent, or Flip it (show the authored order to about half of respondents and the reverse to the rest), separately for cards and categories.
• Show subset: show each respondent a random subset of the cards instead of the full deck. Completion counts only the cards that respondent was shown.

1. Step 1: Open Block Builder. Open the survey and select the block where the sorting task belongs.

   Step 1: Open Block Builder

2. Step 2: Add a Card Sort question. Choose Card Sort from the question type selector.

   Step 2: Choose Card Sort question type

3. Step 3: List the cards. Add every item respondents will sort. Keep card text short so it reads clearly as a draggable chip.

   Step 3: List the cards

4. Step 4: List the categories. Add the buckets cards can be sorted into, and decide whether respondents may add their own.

   Step 4: List the categories

5. Step 5: Name and code it. Add a readable variable name so the exported assignment column is easy to interpret.

   Step 5: Variable Name

6. Step 6: Preview the drag interaction. Confirm cards can be dragged into every category on both desktop and a narrower viewport; see Mobile-Friendly Research Surveys for phone checks.

   Step 6: Preview the sort

Respondents do not need to drag. A keyboard user can Tab to a card, press Enter to select it, then Tab to the Place here button next to a category name and press Enter to put the card there. Mouse and touch users can still tap anywhere in a category instead. Screen readers announce each card and category by name, so a respondent knows what they picked up and where it went.

Each response exports which category every card landed in. If a required response still leaves cards unsorted, treat that as a data-quality flag — mark the question required and check for incomplete sorts before analysis. When an open or hybrid sort is enabled, respondent-created category names export alongside the authored categories. For a card sort that lets a card go into more than one category, turning on Expand select-all questions as indicator columns in Export adds one 0/1 column per card and category pair.

Instrument Review warns when a minimum or maximum number of cards per category can't be met with the cards available.

• Tree Testing Survey Questions, the standard follow-up method once a sort suggests a structure
• Ranking Survey Questions
• Grid Matrix Survey Questions
• Mobile-Friendly Research Surveys
• Survey Variable Names and Recodes