Users sort topics

Once your cards are ready, shuffle them and ask participants to group them into piles any way that feels natural to them. Give participants 15-20 minutes to complete the sort. If they haven't finished by then, offer an extra 5 minutes. Avoid rushing them, as the quality of groupings depends on participants thinking things through at their own pace.

Let participants know they can move cards around at any point. Changing their mind mid-session is completely normal and often reflects genuine reconsideration.

If a participant isn't sure where a card belongs or doesn't recognize what it means, have them place it in an "uncategorized" or "unsure" pile rather than forcing a guess. Random groupings add noise to your data and make analysis harder to trust.^[1]