Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Weinberger 5-6
In Weinberger's book, Everything is Miscellaneous, chapter five reminded me a lot of the key points we read about in Don't Make Me Think. The idea of tree leaves and tagging seems much like Krug's love of tabs on web pages. Just as Weinberger says everything has a proper place and those that don't should be limited, Krug stressed the very same points of organization in his book. I liked the was Weinberger explains the creation of tagging. Although Weinberger states that Wikipedia was created to be a source of miscellaneous articles from A-Z, all the articles can be found through various tags. Making it not only a highly popular website but an easy to use on as well. My favorite part of Weinberger's theory is the idea of putting "one leaf on many branches." To me the best part of the virtual world is that face that one item can be found in many places. Instead of having a stack of books locked into one place in the physical world, they can be in many place in the virtual world. For example I did a experiment to see if I could find the same photo using different tags, or search words on google. The first search I did was for sunsets. I found many images, one of which was of a whale in the ocean. If you click on the photo in the top left you can see it enlarged. To find the same photo I searched for simply whale tale (not even spelling tail right) I came up with many images and couldn't find an exact match but several of the photos were of whale tails on the horizon of a sunset. Such as this example. If more time was available I'd like to try this experiment again with other sites and other tags. I completely agree with Weinberger that events in the virtual world should be tagged more than once, in order to use our resources to the fullest. I fully believe that it is entirely possible to find the same photo, book or any item using different tags to search!
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I agree that tagging is so important with all of the information we have available to us on the internet. When you were looking for the same photo of the whale in the ocean, were you disappointed that you didn't find an exact match? Do you think if you had spelled it "tail" instead of "tale" in your search you would have found different images? Or do you think if you had searched more or gave a more specific tag to the original picture that you would have been able to find it again?
ReplyDeleteHi Beckah,
ReplyDeleteI like the connection you make between Weinberger and Krug, and the "experiment" you conduct to test out Weinberger's ideas vis a vis tags.
I like the idea of your "experiment," and I'd like to try it myself. I agree that tags are a useful tool, but there are times when I find them frustrating, or ignore them completely. I think it probably depends on what purpose they're serving, and how well they're set up.
ReplyDeleteYour experiment seems a lot more common than I could have imagined, so already, that's good; lol. I feel that if you try to find the same thing of what you have already somewhere else, if that makes sense, then you may be up a creek w/o a paddle, so the best thing to do is be happy with what you already have and then look for something different. You made really good points about how instead of having a stack of books locked into one place in the physical world, they can be in many place in the virtual world. Very clever and appropriate. Good job on your post!
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a great point about misspelled tags. Things can go wrong if the people making the tags don't agree on spelling. Not a big deal for finding whale tails, but it would be if you had to find all the members of a group then give them access to board an airplane. Then a misspelling can have more significant consequences.
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