Suggestions needed for list of links

[Bernhard Sturm]

Don't get me wrong. As I said, if this is a personal site, do what you
please. Since your example seems to be about poetry (I don't read the
language), maybe it is ok... but not for any kind of business or
information site.

errm... a lot of 'business or information' websites are using tag-clouds
as a mean of a metanavigational element. check out:

http://www.spiegel.de
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/
http://del.icio.us/tag/
http://www.istockphoto.com
....

 

[Animesh K]

errm... a lot of 'business or information' websites are using tag-clouds
as a mean of a metanavigational element. check out:

http://www.spiegel.de
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/
http://del.icio.us/tag/
http://www.istockphoto.com
...

I think by business BTS meant sites which actually sell something (and
ship it to you). He didn't mean personal data organizer or personal
interaction type websites.

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

Bernhard Sturm wrote:

I think by business BTS meant sites which actually sell something (and
ship it to you). He didn't mean personal data organizer or personal
interaction type websites.

sorry, now I am confused. Did you visited any of the above sites, or are
you just guessing?
Doesn't DER SPIEGEL sell it's news? FYI: this is one of the largest
news-magazins worldwide. SPIEGEL ONLINE is the market leader for
news-portals (including their hourly produced online-tv-broadcasts).
Associated to DER SPIEGEL is manager magazin and Harvard
Businessmanager. You have to pay for using their news-services...
And for iStockPhoto: Have you ever visited the site? You have to pay if
you want to use their services...

If you really want the company, that is after the bucks, then check this
tag-cloud (yes, the one company, that also people in the US know about):

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Tags-Cloud.aspx

(and don't tell me ever again, that tag-clouds are for personal data
organizer websites only

HTH
bernhard

 

[dorayme]

(I don't expect a person claiming "Corn Flakes" to be his or her full name
to be _able_ to argue.)

This is an interesting thought. Do arguments need an authority
behind them to add to their force? I would say a good argument
stands on its merits, just as a good picture does. If you have to
look behind an argument to see who said it, it usually means you
are not impressed with the argument itself.

 

[dorayme]

"A tag cloud is a set of related tags with corresponding weights.
Typical tag clouds have between 30 and 150 tags."

Yesss ... I can see myself looking through a mess such as the pictured
sample on that page, looking for "Purchase" ...

Indeed, it looked like an awful mess!

 

[Animesh K]

sorry, now I am confused. Did you visited any of the above sites, or are
you just guessing?
Doesn't DER SPIEGEL sell it's news? FYI: this is one of the largest
news-magazins worldwide. SPIEGEL ONLINE is the market leader for
news-portals (including their hourly produced online-tv-broadcasts).
Associated to DER SPIEGEL is manager magazin and Harvard
Businessmanager. You have to pay for using their news-services...
And for iStockPhoto: Have you ever visited the site? You have to pay if
you want to use their services...

If you really want the company, that is after the bucks, then check this
tag-cloud (yes, the one company, that also people in the US know about):

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Tags-Cloud.aspx

(and don't tell me ever again, that tag-clouds are for personal data
organizer websites only

HTH
bernhard

If you read carefully, I said "I think ..." Certainly I don't know
what's in the mind of BTS.

Again for selling, I said sites which "ship" (like amazon, dell etc.)
unlike companies which sell soft products or data organization tools.

As far as usability of tag-cloud goes, I have stressed before that I
found them usable and that's am trying to incorporate them. Btw, one
question: Do you think links in tag-clouds should be underlined? Jukka
did have a point that nothing looks like a hyperlink ... and I think
underlines improve the reading (at least they tell which words are grouped).

 

[dorayme]

If you really want the company, that is after the bucks, then check this
tag-cloud (yes, the one company, that also people in the US know about):

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Tags-Cloud.aspx

In this case there are just a few links. Many tidier link lists
would be as good. Where there are a real lot, it looks messy and
hard to find things. Honestly, what is the argument for them
besides that some big companies use them?

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

Again for selling, I said sites which "ship" (like amazon, dell etc.)
unlike companies which sell soft products or data organization tools.

What would be the difference for products you can ship against products
you can download in relation to tag-clouds?

Btw, one
question: Do you think links in tag-clouds should be underlined? Jukka
did have a point that nothing looks like a hyperlink ... and I think
underlines improve the reading (at least they tell which words are
grouped).

Who said that links need to be underlined? It all depends on the way how
you visually communicate all other links on your site. In general you
should not disturb your visitors by introducing different ways of
link-styles. If you have introduced a consistent link-style at your
website (that is well distinguishable as a link-style), then you should
also use this visual style for your tag cloud links. Consistency is the
keyword to usability and not 'underline every link'.

cheers
bernhard

 

[Animesh K]

What would be the difference for products you can ship against products
you can download in relation to tag-clouds?

If I go to flickr and view a photo under flowers category, chances are I
am interested in nature's photos. So a tag cloud with landscapes,
seascapes, mountains etc. can be shown to me for further viewing.

If I am customizing a Dell computer, or buying a mouse at buy.com, where
and what will be the nature of tag-cloud? Unless you have other
suggestions.... I haven't seen a site selling stuff with a tag-cloud yet.


As far as I understand, data has relational properties, while objects of
purchase --- though related --- are pretty different. Amazon does have a
nice model to show related purchases (What do people buy eventually who
look at this item?). But this is very different from a tag-cloud.

Who said that links need to be underlined? It all depends on the way how

Nobody said so. It is a convention however and usually links are styled
differently than text. If a page has no text but only links, a new or
non-net savvy user will get confused.

you visually communicate all other links on your site. In general you
should not disturb your visitors by introducing different ways of
link-styles. If you have introduced a consistent link-style at your
website (that is well distinguishable as a link-style), then you should
also use this visual style for your tag cloud links. Consistency is the
keyword to usability and not 'underline every link'.

True true! So underlining makes sense at my site since I use icons for
4-5 common tasks and underlined links for other. Thank you.

 

[Animesh K]

In this case there are just a few links. Many tidier link lists
would be as good. Where there are a real lot, it looks messy and
hard to find things. Honestly, what is the argument for them
besides that some big companies use them?

Compactness, certainly. The text size tells their popularity. They are
alphabetically organized and hence easy to find (if you know what you
are looking for).

 

[Animesh K]

In this case there are just a few links. Many tidier link lists
would be as good. Where there are a real lot, it looks messy and
hard to find things. Honestly, what is the argument for them
besides that some big companies use them?

And in my case, there is one more use. Because I am publishing Sanskrit
poems on my website, the words don't have a well-defined spelling in
English. So I can't make a search box easily -- for example, Adi, Aadhi,
Adhi, Aadi, AaDhi all mean the same word depending on which part of
India you are from. These tag pages simplify the search-feature
significantly (both for the user and for me).

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

In this case there are just a few links. Many tidier link lists
would be as good. Where there are a real lot, it looks messy and
hard to find things. Honestly, what is the argument for them
besides that some big companies use them?

humm.. I see tag clouds as another metanavigational aid. Usually tag
clouds represent a semantic-map over a specific topic. They are indeed
messy as this is the keypoint in a tag cloud: you have a lot of various
words that are related with each other. The strength of the relationship
is usally marked by the position, weight or size of the words. They can
help you to get the most related topics out of a search criteria, and
showing you all loosely related information at the same time, and they
do help you by widdening your search through a special topic of
interest. Tag clouds are not only restricted to words only, but can also
be represented by images.
Libraries and encyclopedia are using tag clouds in order to provide a
different and probably more efficient overview over a certain topic.

bernhard

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:24:33
GMT Animesh K scribed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_cloud

Thanks, Animesh. I'm afraid I have to say that my reaction is rather like
Beauregard's (-peeked ahead), though. Now I'll read the rest of the
opinions.

 

[dorayme]

Compactness, certainly. The text size tells their popularity. They are
alphabetically organized and hence easy to find (if you know what you
are looking for).

Yes, I see. I like that it wraps with browser size but I think it
gets harder to use on bigger text sizes aside from being uglier
then. Anyway, an interesting way of ordering things.

Perhaps we should object that here essentially is a list or table
(alpha in one col and popularity index in another col) being
formatted for visual users only.

 

[Animesh K]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:24:33
GMT Animesh K scribed:


Thanks, Animesh. I'm afraid I have to say that my reaction is rather like
Beauregard's (-peeked ahead), though. Now I'll read the rest of the
opinions.

That was just to tell whether tag-cloud is a known "category
presentation" trick. Their examples aren't the best and Wiki has a
"brush icon" to denote that the article needs to be improved.

Look into some examples that Bernhard gave.

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

If I am customizing a Dell computer, or buying a mouse at buy.com, where
and what will be the nature of tag-cloud? Unless you have other
suggestions.... I haven't seen a site selling stuff with a tag-cloud yet.

Maybe you haven't seen it, but you can imagine its application: if you
buy a computer at an online-shop for electronic devices you might also
want to buy the speakers or a TFT-panel or a backup solution, but you
might not be that interested in buying power cords as they are more
loosely related to your tag 'computer'... So here you go: another
application for a tag cloud.

for an example see: http://www.magneticone.com/store/
or for sunglasses see: http://www.sugos.de/tags/alltags.php/sugos

If it's information then you can generate a tag cloud regardless if you
can download it or ship it, don't limit yourself too much

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:18:01 GMT
Animesh K scribed:

That lad is me. I was toying with google groups a few month ago and took
that as a handle. I forgot to change it. I changed it as soon as I
noticed it.

There's nothing wrong with Corn Flakes unless they're overmilked.

I am not venting any anger. You should see what Jukka's replies were to
my questions. Either he was unaware of the answers, or he was wasting
his time.

I know, I was just making a joke. Jukka can be obstreporous at times, and
someone once suggested it might have something to do with the weather in
Finland.

 

[Animesh K]

Animesh K wrote:

for an example see: http://www.magneticone.com/store/
or for sunglasses see: http://www.sugos.de/tags/alltags.php/sugos

If it's information then you can generate a tag cloud regardless if you
can download it or ship it, don't limit yourself too much

Agreed. You were (and you are) right about their usage in a commercial
setting too.

 

[Animesh K]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:18:01 GMT

There's nothing wrong with Corn Flakes unless they're overmilked.

Just wondering if you ever said that to a woman!

 

[rf]

You suffer from selective reading. I had mentioned that the website is
under development right now [Quote -> it can be accessed (for testing
purposes, not complete yet!)].

You suffer from missing the point.

If your 404 page demands an email address I will simply not bother. Not even
to type in an invalid one. It is, after all, me doing you a service. And, as
I pointed out, you should already know about the 404 from your server logs.