Within the last year more and more job adverts for information architects have been asking for experience with ‘card sorting’. ‘What is it?’ asks the author of this book. Apparently many other people have also been wondering the same thing and card sorting is perceived as a magical and mysterious art, the mastery of which will instantly open doors to all sorts of well-paid employment. The term conjures up images of strange tarot-decks associated with interaction, being sorted by high priests of interaction dressed in black gowns at secret meetings reminiscent of Kubrick’s film ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, but with more bits of white card and less naked women. Eventually the author visited the user-studies guru at Hewlett Packard's usability lab and asked him...

... Two months later he found himself shivering in a deserted abbey in deepest Romania where the reclusive grand-master of card sorting was due to reveal to him the dark secret that lies at the heart of this ancient and most mystic of usability skills...

No. Not really, the user-studies guru simply explained the basic statistical and psychological ideas that underpin card sorting. The author combined this with his knowledge of taxonomy to put together a concise, and highly readable, book introducing card sorting and explaining its place in taxonomy design.