PROCESS QUESTIONS

1. Does the process require reporting, auditing, compliance or version control?

2. Can the process be mapped? Or has the process been mapped and optimized already?

3. Is this process in operation today, electronically, in paper or otherwise?

4. If the business process is new to the business, have the necessary participants of the process been informed and involved in the change management and business improvement exercise?

5. Do you have a paper forms and folders that are passed around?

6. Is this process time sensitive? Are there service level agreements? Do you need escalation points when specific time limits are reached based on your SLAs?

7. Do you have a business process that requires more than one type of review or decision at the same time?

8. Does the process share information with any other process?

9. Does the process run for a long time?

PEOPLE QUESTIONS

1. Will tasks need to be performed on behalf of another person?

2. Will the process involve the participation of the entire organization?

3. Are the process participants geographically dispersed?

4. Does the process need to escalate if someone fails to action it?

5. Do multiple people need to review and sign this off?

6. Are external parties involved in the process, for example regulatory agencies, customers and partners?

7. Is it important to notify users of process status?

8. Is overall process visibility important, for example for employees, managers, executives or auditors?

9. Do you need visibility into your process, like who is doing what and how long does tasks take to complete?

Card sorting is a technique that many information architects (and related professionals.) use as an input to the structure of a site or product. With so many of us using the technique, why would we need to write an article on it?

While card sorting is described in a few texts and a number of sites, most descriptions are brief. There is not a definitive article that describes the technique and its variants and explains the issues to watch out for. Given the number of questions posted to discussion groups, and discussions we have had at conferences, we thought it was time to get all of the issues in one place.

This article provides a detailed description of the basic technique, with some focus on using the technique for more complex sites. This article does not cover some issues such as the use of online tools, which will be covered in a future article.

Read more…….

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/card_sorting_a_definitive_guide