How Card Sorting Shaped an Emotional Support App

Project Owner

Listens

Research & Analytics

Overview

This is a project about designing an emotional release app that connects Storytellers (people who want to vent or share) with Listeners (trained volunteers who provide empathetic listening). Since the app concept was new to many users, we needed to understand how they naturally categorize and prioritize features. This case study focuses on how we used moderated open card sorting to inform the app’s information architecture and improve usability.

Impact

The insights gathered helped us:

Create a home screen that feels intuitive and comforting.
Group features like messaging and notifications in a way that made sense to users.
Prioritize personalization tools, reinforcing trust and emotional safety.
Guide our product team in structuring the app to match real user mental models.

As a result, users found the app easier to navigate and more emotionally engaging—two key factors in retention and satisfaction for mental health products.

Approach

We conducted moderated open card sorting with target users, where they grouped and labeled app features based on their own logic. This method allowed us to step into the user’s mindset and design a structure that feels natural, especially for a product that deals with vulnerability and emotions.

Process

Preparation
We created a set of cards representing app features (e.g., profile, messages, stickers, session history).
Card Sorting Sessions
Participants grouped the cards into categories that made sense to them. They could create new group names and were asked to prioritize the cards by importance.
Guided Conversations
We asked follow-up questions such as:
- Why did you group these together?
- Which features felt most important?
- Were any cards confusing or irrelevant?
Analysis
Using patterns in how users grouped and prioritized cards, we developed a clearer structure for the app’s layout.

Summary

Even in a digital product centered on emotional well-being, structure matters. By using card sorting, we were able to translate a new and unfamiliar concept into an experience that felt logical, comforting, and easy to navigate. This study emphasized the power of user-centered design in crafting technology that listens as much as it speaks.