Trouble free tagging in web apps

Tagging content is work of the worst kind – Production Work. Yet hundreds of thousands of people are doing it every day on the web. Apps like Flickr and Del.icio.us have gone a long way to show tagging can be worth the trouble… Now we need more apps that make tagging less trouble.

My Web 2.0

Yahoo’s My Web 2.0 has the best interaction I’ve seen:

Two things stand out here:

1. Suggestions. When categorizing something, getting started can be the hardest thing. Here Yahoo offers up a few ideas. Three is a great number. Generally their suggestions offer a variety (rather than very similar variations) without becoming overwhelming. The green “plus” icons make it obvious that clicking the blue underlined link will add it to the input box.
2. Auto-Complete. As you type, a list of your tags drops down below the input box. This saves repetitive typing and eliminates the need to remember exactly which tag you’ve used. Also, they’ve done a hell of a job on the drop down interaction. The keyboard arrow and enter keys work exactly like you would expect. They even get the insertion point down solid – Which is no easy task.

All Consuming

At the other side of the spectrum, Robot Co-Op’s All Consuming has the worst implementation:

Comparing it to Yahoo:

1. Popular Tags. At first glance, this seems like Yahoo’s Suggestions. Rather than add a tag, clicking one takes you to that tags browse page – Completely removing you from your editing task. I don’t know what purpose that functionality is intended to serve, other that serious frustration.
2. No Auto-Complete. The first things I entered into All Consuming were the Planetary graphic novels, tagged with: comics supernatural archeology superhero warren ellis. When entering the second book, I had to type all of that again. Then I wised up and copied it to the clipboard for the third book. Except the first was tagged with “comics”, while the second and third used “comic”.

Yahoo reduces the mental load required to tag items. All Consuming does not. While adding an extra layer of confusion on top due to the awkward mental model presented by “Popular Tags”.

I think of saving things to My Web 2.0 as a quick and easy process. I’ve used Del.icio.us for links since December of 2003. I still do, but MW2.0 has moved in to handle all my web development links.

I like the idea of All Consuming. I’d really like to have my list of items on my personal blog. The inconveniences of it’s interface (it’s worth mentioning that they go beyond the tagging widgets) seem somewhat minor, yet I haven’t been back. It feels like too much work. With all the other things I can do online, work looses.