Tag Clouds

In class we discussed the arranging and hierarcy of information on the blog. I found an article about tag clouds while reading a book Sexy Web Design by Elliot Jay Stocks (2009 SitePoint). On the right is a nice example of using a tag cloud as a subnavigation on Web Designer Wall which shows that usability and good design work together very nicely. (http://www.webdesignerwall.com/)

Here is an excerpt from the book.
A visually interesting way to present a set of topics in the form of a tag cloud - a series of words that use size and prominence to indicate a particular term's popularity or importance, so named for the way the group of terms resemble the puffy outline of a cloud.
Tag clouds are particulary interesting form of navigaton, because they imply a sense of what topics are most discussed by allowing some tags to appear in larger or smaller font sizes. As a general rule, the larger the font size, the more popular the tag.
The knock-on effect is that the links within tag clouds are usually dynamic in two different ways:

* their size is constantly subject to fluctuation as the content on the site changes
* the terms that form the tag cloud are also updated as soon as new topics are introduced

Some sites - where many tags are supported - will only display the most popular: this results in a form of navigation that regulates itself with little effort required from the person(s) behind the web site.