Tag cloud

Thinking about Search will take you sometime to metadata and tags. It is used in all kind of ways. For example to help you structure your documents in a document management system. Or better said, configure your system with a document structure plan. It is also possible to configure views with it and groups of related documents as if they where grouped in a dossier.
One nice and simple way to visually help the user to keep track of documents or important, often used tags is a 'TAG CLOUD'.



Such a bunch of words tell you a few things: what tags are used and the bigger they, the more they are used. When clicking on that hyperlink, it will organize the documents in a view that are tagged with that term. Fast and efficient.

Tag Clouds are used a lot in publishing sites using BLOGS like this one. (if you like the cloud in this BLOG there is a link to the script used) More and more you will see these kind of techniques appear in the more document management related systems. Not always in this form, but based on the technique itself.

So what has this to do with search? Well think about it. Do you want to search or to find.