Get Your Head Out of The Tag Clouds!
Trend: Tag Clouds
Just like real clouds, tag clouds make it rain, but with information and none of that dangerous lightning stuff. Now don’t get me wrong, I definitely think tag clouds look cool, and they are on a ton of websites (even on ours in the footer), but I tend to question exactly how useful they are, kind of like The Amazing Fish Pen which for those of us that need an explanation, is a fishing rod looking writing device that fits into your briefcase. Sounds cool right? But does anyone use the fish pen? Am I wrong? What do these accomplish that an ordinary list doesn’t? Do people actually use these (especially in 3D) or are they just a hot trend we showcase on a page for just because we can do it? Let’s hear it.
Every time you vote DOWN a tag cloud gets punched in the face.
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Russell Wilson
Aug 31, 2009
9:30 pm
I have a hard time finding any tangible value beyond eye candy. Whatever information the 3D tag cloud communicates can be communicated more efficiently and clearly with a simple sorted list.
Andrew Westberg
Sep 1, 2009
6:27 am
I think tag clouds try to do too much. They’re data visualization components in that some of them weight the tag’s important by using a larger font for the tag. They’re also navigation components in that clicking a tag takes you to something you were (hopefully) looking for.
They fail as data visualization in that a short large font tag can sometimes be overshadowed by a slightly smaller, but longer tag.
They fail as navigation because it’s not immediately clear what the top tags are and which you should click on. The un-orderedness of the tag cloud renders them a bit impotent.
I see them all over the place on websites, but I can’t remember the last time I actually clicked on one other than for curiosity’s sake.
Kate Vander Ploeg
Sep 2, 2009
4:00 am
The 3-d tag clouds make me feel like I have to try and catch the word, which would be fine if I was playing a video game, but is annoying when I am trying to get information. Not to mention that the constantly moving object on the screen is distracting from other information.
Still, I can't help but think the cloud functionality is an interesting one – just maybe not best suited for tags but for something more lighthearted.
Bennett
Sep 3, 2009
11:47 pm
Some tag clouds indicate a tag's importance by displaying it in a larger font. This fails, as @Andrew pointed out, because the perceived size depends on the length of the tag as well as the font size.
Such tag clouds are often also in alphabetical order, which should be useful for locating specific tags. But it can be hard to follow the order because mixing huge tags with tiny ones messes up the layout.
Sometimes tag clouds are given in order of popularity but with no indication of relative popularity (as on this site). This is not enough information. So "menu" is more popular than "CSS". But it is 1% more popular, or is it ten times more popular?
Here are some alternatives:
- Display each tag on its own line, within a horizontal box proportional to its popularity. Order the tags by popularity or alphabetically. For example:
[menu ]
[CSS ]
[editor ]
- list all tags alphabetically, with popular ones in bold
- list the top (say) 20 tags alphabetically
Katy
Sep 17, 2009
3:20 pm
Just because you can, does not mean you should!
Nice to hear I’m not the only one who sees no functional purpose for tag clouds.