Designing Tag
Navigation
November 2007

James Kalbach
Human Factors Engineer LexisNexis
Information Architect Razorfish Germany (2003)
Library & Info Science Degree Rutgers University
Designing Web Navigation
(O‘Reilly, Aug 2007)

Metadata

The Navigation Layer
“ [Filters] help people
move from the world
they know (“hits”) to the
world they don’t
(“niches”)…
”
“ Soon everything will
make it to the market
and the real opportunity
will be sorting it all out.
”

1. Owner-Created Metadata
Pros
• Consistent terms
• Comprehensive
Cons
• Time intensive to create
• Maintenance
• Inflexible, rigid
Example:
Controlled Vocabulary

2. Technically Generated Metadata
Cons
Pros
• Can be inaccurate
• Scales up
• Performance intensive
• Quick, timely
• High cost to enter
• Inexpensive to run
Examples: Entity Extraction

3. User-Generated Metadata
Pros
• Low maintenance
• Self-generating organization
• Low costs to get started
• OK for an answer
Cons
• Lacks comprehensiveness
• Requires incubation time
• Navigating other's tags
difficult
Example:
Tagging

Tagging ≠ Tag Cloud

Tagging Process
Why do people tag?
• Re-find something of value
• Share a resource or object with others
Three key stages of tagging
1. Creating tags
2. Using and managing your own tags
3. Using other people’s tags

1. Creating Tags

Encourage Tagging
Make it easy to tag

Prompt for Tags
Help people find words to use

Tag Form
Avoid space-separated tags
Newyearseveparty2007
iphone_review
to-read
Use comma-separated

2. Navigating Your
Own Tags

Provide Different Views
Let people navigate in different ways

Navigate Resources
Allow people to search their resources

Combine Tags
Allow people to combine two tags

3. Navigating
Other People‘s
Tags

Enhance Tag Clouds
Show context and provide structure

Mix Metadata
Expose other types of relevant metadata

Show Tags for Resource
Expose tags at the resource-level

Link to Other People
Browse the resources of other members

Conclusions
Tagging offers an alternative to top-down classification
Tags are still just another type of metadata
Tagging doesn’t necessarily mean using a tag cloud
Understand the broader tagging context
In designing a tagging system, three stages are critical:
1. Creating tags
2. Navigating your own tags
3. Navigating the tags of others
People must be able to navigate tags effectively

Thank You
www.ExperiencingInformation.com
James.Kalbach@LexisNexis.com