4 ms·

"Also as always, the more faddish features such as tag clouds exhibit major usability problems. " This is worth taking note of. Particularly if your users aren

by mixmax 18y ago

"Also as always, the more faddish features such as tag clouds exhibit major usability problems. " This is worth taking note of. Particularly if your users aren't very web-savvy.

unalone 18y ago
Who decided a tag cloud was a good idea? Who used tag clouds enough to decide to put it on their web site? A tag cloud is one of those Internet Things where seeing it on a web site makes me lose some respect for the site maker.
- noodle 18y ago
  i feel like they have a reasonable use, especially for internal development, search and such. but trying to push them as a primary method for navigating your page is pretty stupid.
  - unalone 18y ago
    Listing tags might be useful. Weighting them by size makes the web page look precious. If I'm looking to find something, I will not think that sorted-by-use cloud sizes are useful. It's also really, really ugly. Beauty in aesthetic comes from neatness and organization. Tag clouds are sloppy and formless.
- ken 18y ago
  I think tag clouds are a fantastic idea. They just happen to be terrible for navigation. I don't know why anybody thinks that's their primary purpose. If I go to a page, one glance at the tag cloud shows me what the author writes about most. I can't think of a smaller/simpler/quicker way. The fact that they're clickable is basically irrelevant.
  - unalone 18y ago
    "I write about Macs and typography." "I love David Foster Wallace and interface design." You can say more in a sentence than you can in a cloud, and it's more personal that way, and it's not ugly.
    - jmatt 18y ago
      You can say more in a sentence than you can in a cloud Yes, I agree. But the tag cloud will be more accurate. I can think of a number of blogs that have pretty ambiguous or off-target taglines. and it's not ugly Yeah there are some hideous tag clouds out there. Ugh.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
  - tjpick 18y ago
    > I can't think of a smaller/simpler/quicker way. ordered list.
    - thaumaturgy 18y ago
      You're right, but a tag cloud does offer a very obvious visual cue. There's nothing in an ordered list that suggests visually that the top item has the highest reference count.
      - mhb 18y ago
        What three variables is the tag cloud conveying by its tag sizes, and the tags' x and y locations?
        thaumaturgy 18y ago
        The x-y of the tags is pretty much irrelevant -- I don't know if anybody's actually trying to use that to convey anything. The tag sizes are pretty unambiguous though, which is where the clouds do better than ordered lists. Ordered lists are inconsistent: sometimes they're ordered alphabetically, sometimes they're ordered by importance, sometimes by popularity, sometimes they're not ordered at all, which is visually identical to an ordered list. A tag cloud on the other hand always relates the tag size to the number of items with that particular tag. That's the visual distinction that makes them more useful than a simple list.
        Hexstream 18y ago
        You could have a list in decreasing order of importance/fontsize... I think it's harmful to use a seemingly 2D representation when the spatial relations are meaningless. 1D (a list) would be enough.
        Raphael 18y ago
        But then you lose alphabetical order.
henning 18y ago
It's just one more pointless feature to ignore, like a row of "submit this page to some other random website" buttons, a column of video comments from some random video startup (Seesmic?), ads for Wordpress themes, and other typical Web 2.0 detritus.
- unalone 18y ago
  I'd like to think the problem stems from the fact that a lot of Web 2.0 startup startupers are extremely young and think that a Digg button, a bunch of startup plugins, and a column of AJAX goodies will add to a page's design rather than compromise it. Unfortunately, these things are so widespread that I fear some people have bought into these things as actual effective tools, which saddens me somewhat.

by mixmax 18y ago

"Also as always, the more faddish features such as tag clouds exhibit major usability problems. " This is worth taking note of. Particularly if your users aren't very web-savvy.

unalone 18y ago

Who decided a tag cloud was a good idea? Who used tag clouds enough to decide to put it on their web site? A tag cloud is one of those Internet Things where seeing it on a web site makes me lose some respect for the site maker.

noodle 18y ago
i feel like they have a reasonable use, especially for internal development, search and such. but trying to push them as a primary method for navigating your page is pretty stupid.
- unalone 18y ago
  Listing tags might be useful. Weighting them by size makes the web page look precious. If I'm looking to find something, I will not think that sorted-by-use cloud sizes are useful. It's also really, really ugly. Beauty in aesthetic comes from neatness and organization. Tag clouds are sloppy and formless.
ken 18y ago
I think tag clouds are a fantastic idea. They just happen to be terrible for navigation. I don't know why anybody thinks that's their primary purpose. If I go to a page, one glance at the tag cloud shows me what the author writes about most. I can't think of a smaller/simpler/quicker way. The fact that they're clickable is basically irrelevant.
- unalone 18y ago
  "I write about Macs and typography." "I love David Foster Wallace and interface design." You can say more in a sentence than you can in a cloud, and it's more personal that way, and it's not ugly.
  - jmatt 18y ago
    You can say more in a sentence than you can in a cloud Yes, I agree. But the tag cloud will be more accurate. I can think of a number of blogs that have pretty ambiguous or off-target taglines. and it's not ugly Yeah there are some hideous tag clouds out there. Ugh.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
- tjpick 18y ago
  > I can't think of a smaller/simpler/quicker way. ordered list.
  - thaumaturgy 18y ago
    You're right, but a tag cloud does offer a very obvious visual cue. There's nothing in an ordered list that suggests visually that the top item has the highest reference count.
    - mhb 18y ago
      What three variables is the tag cloud conveying by its tag sizes, and the tags' x and y locations?
      - thaumaturgy 18y ago
        The x-y of the tags is pretty much irrelevant -- I don't know if anybody's actually trying to use that to convey anything. The tag sizes are pretty unambiguous though, which is where the clouds do better than ordered lists. Ordered lists are inconsistent: sometimes they're ordered alphabetically, sometimes they're ordered by importance, sometimes by popularity, sometimes they're not ordered at all, which is visually identical to an ordered list. A tag cloud on the other hand always relates the tag size to the number of items with that particular tag. That's the visual distinction that makes them more useful than a simple list.
        Hexstream 18y ago
        You could have a list in decreasing order of importance/fontsize... I think it's harmful to use a seemingly 2D representation when the spatial relations are meaningless. 1D (a list) would be enough.
        Raphael 18y ago
        But then you lose alphabetical order.

henning 18y ago

It's just one more pointless feature to ignore, like a row of "submit this page to some other random website" buttons, a column of video comments from some random video startup (Seesmic?), ads for Wordpress themes, and other typical Web 2.0 detritus.

unalone 18y ago
I'd like to think the problem stems from the fact that a lot of Web 2.0 startup startupers are extremely young and think that a Digg button, a bunch of startup plugins, and a column of AJAX goodies will add to a page's design rather than compromise it. Unfortunately, these things are so widespread that I fear some people have bought into these things as actual effective tools, which saddens me somewhat.