How to analyze card sorting results
By UXbeam · Information architecture tools since 2021 · Published September 21, 2026
Results arrive as several views of the same sorts, and each view answers a different question. Use this workflow to inspect the results, compare interpretations and choose what to test next.
1. Check the sample
Before reading a single group, write down what the results are made of: how many participant sorts are included, how many were excluded and why, the dates, and how people were recruited. UXbeam shows the participant count on the results page and keeps excluded participants listed separately. A pretest structure, if one was generated, is shown apart from participant results and is not part of what follows.
2. Inspect individual sorts
Open several sorts and read them as a person's reasoning. Review unusual arrangements and completion times against the study's quality criteria. Remove setup test runs from the research sample. It is also where you first notice that participants who grouped the cards differently organized the cards on different principles; keep both. The open sort protocol has the review table.
3. Choose what to inspect
| Your question | Kind of evidence | View in UXbeam | How to read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| What did people call things? | Participant-written labels | Category labels, with counts | Open sort: participant labels |
| Do these two cards belong together? | Pairwise | Similarity matrix | The similarity matrix |
| What groups emerge across everyone? | Grouping | Dendrogram, at a similarity threshold | The dendrogram |
| Is there one way of organizing this, or more? | Detected mental models | Mental Model Detection | Mental Model Detection |
| Which cards will be hard to place? | Groupings and pair counts | Cards between groups; contested cards | Similarity matrix and dendrogram guides |
| How were supplied categories used, and what categories were added? | Placement; additions | Category use; new categories | Closed · Hybrid |
What each result shows
- Labels
- What participants called their groups. Evidence about vocabulary and, through what each label held, about the organizing principle. Says nothing about how strongly cards belong together.
- Pairwise
- How many sorts put two specific cards together. Compare several pair counts to investigate a card's possible groupings. A count alone does not choose its location or label.
- Grouping
- The dendrogram: every sort pooled into one tree, cut at a threshold. Shows candidate groups; can obscure differences between participants' mental models.
- Detected mental models
- UXbeam's Mental Model Detection identifies recurring ways participants organized the cards. It analyzes individual participant sorts, which can reveal different mental models that a pooled matrix or dendrogram may obscure.
The usual mistake is reading one as another: taking the dendrogram as what participants think, or taking one detected mental model as the whole audience.
4. Consider other explanations
For every observation that matters to the structure, write two readings and what would decide between them.
| Observation | Reading A | Reading B | What would settle it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Returns has similar pair counts with order-related and support-related cards | A return is an order event | A return is a request for help | A tree test task about sending an item back, on each placement |
| Two labels with similar counts for the same group: Payments and Billing | Synonyms; either works | Two audiences with two vocabularies | Which participants used which, and a closed sort or tree test on each name |
| More than one mental model detected | Several coherent ways of organizing the cards | One difference may be concentrated in a small part of the structure rather than the whole domain | Compare the mental models card by card, then build each meaningful alternative as a candidate structure |
5. Form candidate structures
Draft alternatives for differences that matter to the navigation question. In UXbeam, Sitemap + opens the dendrogram at the current threshold, or one detected mental model, as an editable sitemap. Rename, merge, move; then write, under each candidate, the assumption it rests on. A tree test can compare where people expect to find Returns.
6. Decide what still needs validation
- Choose tasks for important contested placements alongside other priority user tasks. UXbeam lists the cards participants placed in different categories for exactly this reason.
- Test consequential label choices in otherwise comparable category sets or tree-test versions.
- Every candidate structure is tested with the same tasks, so that the comparison is between structures and not between task sets.
- Findability is a tree test question. A sort shows where participants put a card when they see every card; a tree test shows whether they can reach it through successive levels of labels. The tree testing guide covers the test.
By sort type
Open
Labels first, then the sorts, then the dendrogram, then detected mental models. The labels show the language participants chose while organizing the cards.
Closed
Placement first: which cards had consistent placements, which split, which categories attracted everything or nothing. Patterns here are category-use patterns. Reading a closed sort.
Hybrid
Additions first: which categories participants created, how often, and which cards they contained. Then placement within your categories. Interpreting new categories.
Two analyses, carried through to a decision, are summarised on the examples page, with links to the full studies.