Derek O'Harrow

We are all familiar with the ever popular tag cloud (as used on this site and many many others), which provides a way to see what topics are popular by providing a cloud view of the hash-tags posts are categorised within. The tag cloud simply provides a list of the tag words used, with those that are used more frequently being in a larger font than those used least.

One challenge with this approach is that many sites now have so many tags that it can be difficult, even when using this information, to find the posts you want.

My idea and suggestion is to use a nested or hierarchical tag cloud. What does this mean?

Simply put, it is a normal tag cloud, but with the ability to select and filter on multiple tags.

This can be done on the basis of those that are mandatory (e.g. filter on posts that have both tags A and B), or optional (e.g. posts that have either Tag A or Tag B).

Selected hash tags would be highlighted or emphasised to indicate that they are being used in the filtering, and once you select multiple hash tags from the cloud, those that are irrelevant (i.e. no longer applicable to the filtered items) are greyed-out or hidden from view, showing only those still applicable within the cloud. This then enables a drill-down approach to finding the information you want.

Of course, a “reset” button would be required to clear the tag filtering, as well as ways to de-select previously selected tags (perhaps selected tags have a small “x” next to them to enable de-selection, or perhaps you can click once again on them to cycle through the optional/mandatory/deselected cycle).

The only question I have is how best to determine if a tag is mandatory or optional in the filter? Do you click once on a tag to make it optional, and twice for mandatory; do you drag-and-drop the tags onto a mandatory or optional buttons; or is there some better way?

Filed under: The Internet