Hi there, has anybody got any insight or found any research on tag clouds and there effectiveness/usability issues good or bad - particularly for web audiences with mixed levels of online experience? Thanks, Emma

Hi

I'm also interested in this thread. Just to clarify, my interest is whether tag could themselves are a good way to present information/navigation.

DJ, I take your point about tag could being frequency driven, but, for example, how do they compare to the same (frequency based) keywords being presented in a traditional horizontal list with the most common to the left and all entries represented the same size, regardless of popularity.

Thanks

Anthony

On 00:54:03 8 December 2007 dcjarvis wrote:
>Hi Emma
>
>Your message doesn't give many clues as to the context in
>which you are thinking of using (or not using!) tag
>clouds. This makes it pretty tricky to respond with
>specific advice.
>
>However what I can suggest is that any navigation system
>(be that a tag cloud, left hand nav bar, global nav etc)
>requires that the "mental model" of the content
>presented on screen needs to match that of the person who
>is using your site.
>
>By that I mean I mean 2 things:
>
>1. The way the content of a given site is broken down into
>categories matches the organisation and classification
>that your user group would use, and
>
>2. The labelling used matches the terminology of your
>users.
>
>Both of these factors have a large impact on whether
>people can actually find the item of content or product
>they are looking for on your site.
>
>Typically there is a wide disparity between how businesses
>want to organise, label and promote products compared to
>how users label and ask for stuff in their own language.
>This disparity can usually be highlighted in keyword
>search logs or SEO/PPC data, or by doing some card sorting
>or usability testing.
>
>Tag clouds are commonly used to represent the frequency
>with which a word is mentioned/blog post tag is
>used/search keyword is entered etc. Because tag clouds
>communicate frequency, they tend to promote the stuff that
>is most popular.
>
>So, what you have to ask yourself is: does this kind of
>representation help or hinder your users to find what they
>need? Or will something else be more appropriate?
>
>Hope this helps.
>
>DJ

On 12:28:26 10 December 2007 Anthonys wrote:
>DJ, I take your point about tag could being frequency
>driven, but, for example, how do they compare to the same
>(frequency based) keywords being presented in a
>traditional horizontal list with the most common to the
>left and all entries represented the same size, regardless
>of popularity.

Of course this depends on the context - what users, which site, what task is the user performing.

However initial reaction is that this sounds like it would be a mess!

Navigation is supposed to "point the way". This implies an understanding of where users will want to go. If you have a sufficiently large site, users won't all want to go to the most frequent destination.

And if you *don't* have a large site then I'll bet you don't need a tag cloud, you'll need a carefully worded & organised global nav bar!

On 21:28:25 10 December 2007 rmm wrote:
>I find the concept of tag clouds interesting. The first
>time I saw one I thought what on earth is that?

Hmm. Yes, and we're all internet people here. Perhaps some don't even get beyond your initial reaction?

>One thing that is difficult with tag clouds is making them
>accessible to blind users.

This is a good point. Tag clouds by their very design rely on visual presentation alone to communicate frequency.

You could of course show the number of articles behind each tag, and then order them in some other way that would make more sense - eg listed by topic grouping. So posts about "tagging" "RSS" and "user generated content" would be listed under a heading of "Web 2.0" for example.

Oh, but then you wouldn't have a tag cloud, you'd have a site index!

DJ

I use tag clouds all over my site see http://www.marzar.com to provide an alternative way to search content and navigate the site. I have found that this drives up page impressions due to the train of thought experience they give users. It would be better to understand how you wanted to use these to answer your question. But I would say tag clouds = great user experience and increased page impressions.

DJ,

My site is about generating page impressions and connecting users to content . I use tag clouds as an addition to traditional navigation on the right hand side of the page in a vertical box.

My site is a social media platform for professional people to use. So for example when you browse the network or events directory the tags represent an alternative way to navigate based on keywords my members are identifying with.

Tags are also used to find matches so if you have tagged your profile using words that are associated to you, you can click on these words to bring back other peoples profiles who you may have something in common with.

In month 1 I had over 100K page impressions from about 600 members of my site. Most of these impressions had been generated from the use of tag clouds in my navigation.

John

On 16:57:28 13 December 2007 dcjarvis wrote:
>> But I would say tag clouds = great user
>> experience and increased page impressions.
>
>That would be "great user experience IF your site is
>about generating page impressions". On an e-commerce
>site for example, more page impressions could equate to
>customers lost in a maze of content unable to find what
>they want!
>
>DJ