Card sorting is one of the activities available on the whiteboard for live text chats and video discussions.
The activity involves creating cards (e.g. a list of car brands) and sorting them into different groups, or sorting them within groups, e.g. by preference, price, etc.

The moderator can add cards and categories during the discussion or can prepare everything in advance.
Respondents don’t add cards or categories, they just move them and sort them.

Preparation before the start of the discussion

First, the moderator must add the card sorting activity to the project. This must be done before it starts. Itā€™s done in the same way as adding new images or videos:

1. Go to the list of all pages (main menu: Pages) and click the Edit button next to the corresponding page.

2. In the page settings, click on the ‘Whiteboard’ tab in the secondary menu and click on the ‘Add file or activity’ button to add a new activity.

3. Fill in any activity name (this is how it will appear in the list) and select the activity type ‘Card Sorting (whiteboard)’.

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Once saved, the activity is ready and will appear to the moderator in the whiteboard panel. If you want to prepare your cards and categories before the discussion starts, use the Edit button and add cards and categories.

Sorting cards in the focus group session

During a discussion, the moderator can add new cards as well as change and delete existing ones. The same can be done with categories. First select your card activity in the whiteboard panel and then send it to respondents’ whiteboards using the blue arrow. Here’s a sample of what a blank card sorting activity looks like on the moderator dashboard (without cards and categories):

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You add new cards using the ‘+Add new card’ button and new categories using the ‘+Add new category’.
New cards are displayed to respondents in the upper block named ‘Unsorted’. The layout of the unsorted cards can be different depending on the respondent’s device width. If one respondent has a widescreen, he may have more cards in the row than a user with a small display.

Each new category will appear as a new column where cards can be dropped. The respondent grabs a card by the blue arrow icon and drags it into the selected column (category). Within each column, the cards can then also be sorted horizontally.

2 sorting modes

The platform allows two ways of working with cards:

1) Each respondent drags the cards individually, resulting in a separate output for each respondent. This is the default mode and does not need to be switched on.

2) The moderator shares his/her card board and moves the cards and the respondents only watch. This mode is used in group work, to seek consensus, or when presenting information or discussion results. If you want to use this mode click on the ‘Share your cards’ button in the moderatorā€™s panel. From that moment the moderatorā€™s whiteboard will be projected onto the respondentsā€™ whiteboards (in real-time). To stop this mode click the ‘Stop sharing whiteboard’.

In the first default sorting mode, where respondents individually sorted their cards the moderator can see the results at the bottom below the whiteboard activity, i.e. when they scroll down on the whiteboard.

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To update the results click on the ‘Refresh this window’ button, and the current status will appear. There is a list of respondents below: if you click on one of the names you will jump straight to their result.

The results are also available in the Export section > Card sorting.