User issues in top-down bottom-up tagging applications: FaceTag

E. Quintarelli, A. Resmini & L. Rosati The FaceTag Engine User Issues in a Bottom-up + Top-down Tagging Application DC Social Tagging Workshop Milano, June 10 2009

Hello DC Social Tagging People!

my name is Andrea Resmini I'm an Information Architect I design information spaces coordinate REG-iA, the Research & Education Group in IA founded the Journal of Information Architecture one of the designers of the FaceTag engine project

an issue

tags are flat free-form keywords liberally assigned by users collaborative tagging is widely used to organize, browse and share large online collections folksonomies are tag-based, bottom-up, user-generated emergent classification systems

tagging has advantages

trade-off between simplicity and precision

matches the user’s needs and language

inclusive, as nothing is left out

helps discovery and improve serendipity

provides free-linking superstructure

better than nothing

tagging has disadvantages

linguistic disadvantages polysemy, homonymy, synonymy the use of plurals, ego-tagging base-level variations

user experience disadvantages user interfaces (tag clouds) with self- sustaining predominance cycles visual clutter no map-making editing interfaces

“Information seekers in large domains need to deal with meaningful groupings of related items in order to understand relationships, build a mental map, and decide how to proceed”

So, how do we move from tags to meaningful groupings and how do we navigate them?

a number of tools and techniques have been proposed

among them, clustering and faceted classification have been used in the past

clustering geerates messy groups, conflates many different dimensions and does not allow refinement and follow-up queries

− facets are orthogonal descriptors within a metadata system that represent semantic properties, part of a top-down paradigm

so what?

 a new metadata ecology  a middle ground between the pure democracy of bottom-up tagging and the empirical determinism of top-down taxonomies

facets + tags = FaceTag

faceTag introduces a multidimensional, semantically richer paradigm based on the CRG faceted theory which provides tag hierarchies system facets to which tag hierarchies are assigned seamless browsing and searching

faceTag then allows to add structure and context to flat tags navigate along several dimensions simultaneously refine and broaden filtering criteria on the fly, with no dead ends (engaging and zooming)

tags are contextualized

 large tag clouds can be sectioned

 recognition is favoured over recall

 exploration, discovery and iterative query refinement are supported

As facets are particularly suitable to classify homogeneous collections, the combination of facets + tags amplifies both the information scent and berry- picking capabilities of the system

this happens along the two axes of IA the vertical paradigmatic axis, where similar tags on the same facet are recalled and the horizontal syntagmatic axis, where all other tags pertaining to the same facet are recalled and suggested

it works, but we found issues

user experience issues

front-end allowing choice, zooming and navigation allowing large numbers of tags structuring the facets display

back-end entering tags having no back-end via browser bookmarklets

first iteration

uses metaphors from other tagging applications (del.icio.us, Rawsugar) introduces a visual top-to-bottom hierarchy among facets has a 'duct tape and some glue' feeling to it goes against some common UI principles

second iteration

designed using a UCD approach paper and HTML prototyping small groups of users involved few people, many sessions

and now in full color

facet panels have been moved

for more tags, panels slide in

issues in the back-end are still to be thoroughly investigated

thank you! www.facetag.org

User issues in top-down bottom-up tagging applications: FaceTag

by Andrea Resmini

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