card sort task (case 5345)

[jason_reed]

Hi Melissa,

Thanks for the kind words. It's too bad that I we couldn't come up with something created directly in MediaLab or DirectRT to fit exactly what you needed. Even though it has been a while since my last post, I wanted to share an external application that may be of interest to you.

I recently found out about a card sort task with an online interface. It's called MOIST (Modifiable Online Interface for Sorting Tasks; you know how academics love acronyms that turn into actual words!). It was created by Simon Blanchard for his dissertation. The cool thing about it is that participants can sort items into whatever groups they want, even using the same item in multiple group, and later name the group themselves. This sounds very close to what you wanted.

Here is the URL for his project page:

http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/sjb247/

Check it out!

Psychboiler

[Melissa Abo]

Thanks so much Psychboiler! That's perfect!!! I will try to set it up so that they will do the card sort first and then when they exit out of it, I will have already set up the MediaLab/DirectRT portion for them to do the RT tasks. Merging the data shouldn't take me too long. This is great!

[jason_reed]

Melissa,

That is the first squee I got since posting on the boards here, so I will take it that you like my suggestion. I'm glad this looks like what you were looking for and that our time on this forum thread proved useful. Let me know how this program works out for you and if anything else comes up as you put your study together.

Cheers!

Psychboiler

[Melissa Abo]

Thanks Psychboiler It's working out fine so far since Ps will be doing the MOIST test first and then DirectRT. However, if that had been opposite, I'd have run into an ID issue since MOIST generates it's own user ID. So what I'm doing is having Ps do MOIST and at the end when it tells them their user ID, I will manually type that in when I set them up on MediaLab/DirectRT so that I'll know which MOIST data goes with which MediaLab/DirectRT data. Would be cool if you guys could work with the MOIST folks sometime to do some sort of ID sharing

[jason_reed]

Hi Melissa,

Thanks for the update. I'm glad to see that you not only got to try out MOIST, but that you are able to use it in concert with MediaLab to conduct your study. I agree that it would be neat to pursue trying to integrate the two programs more seamlessly. Were you thinking of something beyond sharing a common participant ID? I ask because I am not as familiar with what MOIST can do, so it would be great if you could share some thoughts about how to get the most out of MOIST and MediaLab.

Cheers.

Psychboiler

[Melissa Abo]

Sorry for the delayed response, we've been working on the MOIST thing. MOIST creates its own particpant ID at the end of the task. This makes using it more complicated We ended up deciding not to use it because it just didn't work out. We would have either had to keep track of two different IDs per participant or we'd have had to use MOIST first and then manually put in the ID it generated into MediaLab when they had finished the MOIST part. That task order might work out for other studies, but we really need to start with MediaLab or Qualtrics for this one.

Also, the data goes to the creator and manager of MOIST, and he then emails it to the researchers. He's very good at emailing back quickly, but I think if we were going to start using MOIST and MediaLab together on a frequent basis, it'd be much more convenient if we could access the data ourselves.

So, I think we are going to end up just not doing the card sort task. It's too bad cause I think the task has a lot of potential, and I really like the user-friendliness of MOIST.

Thank you for your help though!

[jason_reed]

Hi Melissa,

Sorry to hear that the MOIST software seems to cause more hassle than it's worth for your project. Do you still plan on using MediaLab as part of your project? We'd love to hear about how you used MediaLab or provide any further help that you may need.

Don't be a stranger!

Jason (formerly Psychboiler)
Empirisoft Software Support Specialist

[SimonB]

Sorry for the delayed response, we've been working on the MOIST thing. MOIST creates its own particpant ID at the end of the task. This makes using it more complicated We ended up deciding not to use it because it just didn't work out. We would have either had to keep track of two different IDs per participant or we'd have had to use MOIST first and then manually put in the ID it generated into MediaLab when they had finished the MOIST part. That task order might work out for other studies, but we really need to start with MediaLab or Qualtrics for this one.

Also, the data goes to the creator and manager of MOIST, and he then emails it to the researchers. He's very good at emailing back quickly, but I think if we were going to start using MOIST and MediaLab together on a frequent basis, it'd be much more convenient if we could access the data ourselves.

So, I think we are going to end up just not doing the card sort task. It's too bad cause I think the task has a lot of potential, and I really like the user-friendliness of MOIST.

Thank you for your help though!

Oh, the wonders of the internet. I am Simon Blanchard, who administers MOIST (now called Cardsorting.net) and found this internet thread. Melissa was one of the first to find me (thank you Jason for the recommendation), and it's gone a long way since then.

My developers and I have actually addressed the features that you requested.

1. You can create the tasks on your own (kind of like in Qualtrics)
2. You can download the data on your own
3. You can send IDs to the sorting task (so you can link with a survey administered before it)
4. You can send IDs to a survey from the sorting task (so you can link with a survey)

It took me a while to get to this, but I'd be happy to help you out or any other academics who's in need for a sorting task. Feel free to contact me, my info is at www.cardsorting.net.

Best,

Simon