Different or alike? Comparing computer-based and paper-based card sorting

In times of increasing importance of e-commerce solutions, designing for usability has been one focal point of interest of human-computer interaction and marketing research. While internet usability research is progressing tremendously, research on intranet usability is rather scarce. But especially in the firm context, poor usability of intranet portals imposes significant costs on companies as employees need more time obtaining the information they need for their work. The author conducted a laboratory experiment to compare paper-based and computer-based card sorting for usability evaluation and come to the conclusion that there is a significant difference of results regarding the application of the two compared methods optimizing an intranet portal and derive implications for usability testing.