How to prevent too generic categorisation in card sorting

Question

I'm doing a card sorting for an ecommerce of beauty and wellness products and services. I prepared a list of cards which are not too specific and not too generic. For example, I have some cards like - gel and creams, manicure and hand products, oil and body lotions, workout tools, slimming drinks.

I did not create cards like - moisturizers, cleanser etc. because I think that they are too specific (tell me if I did wrong) and, in addition, it would have created too many cards (now I have 40 cards). Now I have to set up the card sorting using optimal sort (because it will be a remote card sorting).

The goal of this card sorting is to have a list of subcategory for products and service within the website. After the first round of card sorting I'd to do an closed card sorting giving fixed big-category (the same category there are right now on the website). My doubt is if the first round of card sorting, which is an open one, it could lead to the creation of category that are already too big.

For example, people could categorize body lotion, creams and gel, manicure, hair products under a big category beauty. I'm worrying about it because the ecommerce has several kind of products, ranging from products for the skin to workout tools and dietetic foods.

Answer 1

Your plan for card sorting looks fine. TO prevent lots of categorize we generally perform mixed card sorting (open and closed), but for this keep some suggestions in mind. 1. Perform open card sorting first with at-least 2-3 user which are potential user or active user of this kind of application. This will benefit you in providing good categories in context.

2. After performing open card sort, now perform closed cart sort with other users and provide the categorize you got from potential user.