Comments on: Tag Clouds: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly http://thenoisychannel.com/2008/10/21/tag-clouds-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/ Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:45:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Daniel Tunkelang http://thenoisychannel.com/2008/10/21/tag-clouds-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/comment-page-1/#comment-10416 Daniel Tunkelang Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:33:17 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=647#comment-10416 Unclear. Especially since search engines keep changing the rules. I'd like to think that Google and Bing aren't rewarding internal link farms, but of couse every system can be gamed. I know something about how Google fights this sort of gaming, but I can't disclose what I know. Unclear. Especially since search engines keep changing the rules. I’d like to think that Google and Bing aren’t rewarding internal link farms, but of couse every system can be gamed. I know something about how Google fights this sort of gaming, but I can’t disclose what I know.

]]> By: Rob Smeed http://thenoisychannel.com/2008/10/21/tag-clouds-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/comment-page-1/#comment-10415 Rob Smeed Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:30:14 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=647#comment-10415 Is there any benefit of tag clouds from an SEO angle? Does a website position better in search engines as a result of the extra internal links? Is there any benefit of tag clouds from an SEO angle? Does a website position better in search engines as a result of the extra internal links?

]]> By: Rob http://thenoisychannel.com/2008/10/21/tag-clouds-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/comment-page-1/#comment-600 Rob Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:13:41 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=647#comment-600 "Tag clouds don’t kill people. Bad designers do." That's fantastic :) I don't mean to say the vertical list is the answer; for one thing, it's not visually interesting like the tag cloud. I'm just saying that I bet there's a way to use the site real estate, get information across, *and* be useful to the user at the same time. If there's been experimentation among the designer community on this front, I haven't seen it, which is too bad since it means that either they are not worried about replacing the tag cloud or that no reasonable replacement has really caught on. Anyone have any links? “Tag clouds don’t kill people. Bad designers do.”

That’s fantastic :)

I don’t mean to say the vertical list is the answer; for one thing, it’s not visually interesting like the tag cloud. I’m just saying that I bet there’s a way to use the site real estate, get information across, *and* be useful to the user at the same time. If there’s been experimentation among the designer community on this front, I haven’t seen it, which is too bad since it means that either they are not worried about replacing the tag cloud or that no reasonable replacement has really caught on.

Anyone have any links?

]]> By: Daniel Tunkelang http://thenoisychannel.com/2008/10/21/tag-clouds-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/comment-page-1/#comment-599 Daniel Tunkelang Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:29:37 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=647#comment-599 Rob, I know I'm not going to convince you to spare the death penalty for tag clouds--though you do seem to be allowing that tag clouds may be useful 0.1% of the time. And, as I said, they are often abused and/or used without forethought about their intention. But they are a compact way to offer a visual summary of a document set--assuming that the tags are themselves meaningful. As for the alternative of enumerating the popular tags in a list as opposed to a cloud, there are pros and cons. While a list is easier to read linearly than a cloud and makes it easy to show counts, the list takes up more vertical space--which is often at a premium. A tag cloud can present more tags--and size is often just as effective an indicator of importance as counts. Tag clouds don't kill people. Bad designers do. Rob, I know I’m not going to convince you to spare the death penalty for tag clouds–though you do seem to be allowing that tag clouds may be useful 0.1% of the time. And, as I said, they are often abused and/or used without forethought about their intention.

But they are a compact way to offer a visual summary of a document set–assuming that the tags are themselves meaningful.

As for the alternative of enumerating the popular tags in a list as opposed to a cloud, there are pros and cons. While a list is easier to read linearly than a cloud and makes it easy to show counts, the list takes up more vertical space–which is often at a premium. A tag cloud can present more tags–and size is often just as effective an indicator of importance as counts.

Tag clouds don’t kill people. Bad designers do.

]]> By: Rob http://thenoisychannel.com/2008/10/21/tag-clouds-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/comment-page-1/#comment-597 Rob Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:27:41 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=647#comment-597 OK, so there are two huge problems that I have with tag clouds, in addition to their being total visual noise 99.9% of the time; the total opposite of the nice, stark utility of sites like Google.com. The first is that their users have not done enough to figure out if they're even useful. The first user studies that have been done by Marti Hearst and others have found that users tend not to click on them at all. One of our partners, Buzzillions, used to have really clean, pleasant-to-look at tag clouds on their home page (props to them for making them look nice!), but removed them since users were not utilizing them. Bottom line: there are better, more efficient ways to use that real estate. The second complaint is that people too rarely think about what they're trying to accomplish with a tag cloud. Are you providing a useful navigation tool that helps users find something? Clearly not, as I mentioned above. Are you providing an interesting visualization of data? If so, what data are you providing, and why is it useful to your users? Will it help a user make a decision faster? It won't help them find what they're looking for. If information visualization is really your goal, is there a better, cleaner, more intuitive way to display the information? "Top 10 Popular Tags" might be a nice side bar that is totally not confusing and probably easier to read and use, for example. The tag cloud arose as a cool and hip Web 2.0 visual widget. Displaying them is the moral equivalent to wearing LA Light Sneakers when you're 7 years old (and, honestly, those shoes are more awesome than tag clouds will ever be). Fortunately, they seem to be going the way of the dodo as Web 2.0 applications become more mature. OK, so there are two huge problems that I have with tag clouds, in addition to their being total visual noise 99.9% of the time; the total opposite of the nice, stark utility of sites like Google.com.

The first is that their users have not done enough to figure out if they’re even useful. The first user studies that have been done by Marti Hearst and others have found that users tend not to click on them at all. One of our partners, Buzzillions, used to have really clean, pleasant-to-look at tag clouds on their home page (props to them for making them look nice!), but removed them since users were not utilizing them. Bottom line: there are better, more efficient ways to use that real estate.

The second complaint is that people too rarely think about what they’re trying to accomplish with a tag cloud. Are you providing a useful navigation tool that helps users find something? Clearly not, as I mentioned above. Are you providing an interesting visualization of data? If so, what data are you providing, and why is it useful to your users? Will it help a user make a decision faster? It won’t help them find what they’re looking for.

If information visualization is really your goal, is there a better, cleaner, more intuitive way to display the information? “Top 10 Popular Tags” might be a nice side bar that is totally not confusing and probably easier to read and use, for example.

The tag cloud arose as a cool and hip Web 2.0 visual widget. Displaying them is the moral equivalent to wearing LA Light Sneakers when you’re 7 years old (and, honestly, those shoes are more awesome than tag clouds will ever be). Fortunately, they seem to be going the way of the dodo as Web 2.0 applications become more mature.

]]>