Taxonomy vs. Folksonomy
I once had the chance to pitch a client on a new site design and in our proposal we proposed organizing the site’s information based on a hybrid system of taxonomy and folksonomy. In my opinion “tagging”, “labeling” whatever you want to call it, is here to stay, with major services like Yahoo and Google already incorporating it, this can’t be argued. So how can we bring the whole concept of “tagging” over to the mainstream? Explain to customers and clients that going with a folksonomy/taxonomy based system is right for their project? I’m not quite sure yet, but I think were getting there.
Here are some thoughts on the subject.
Use familiar terms.
I had a hard time explaining the term “tagging” to people that weren’t familiar with sites like Del.icio.us or Flickr. I have a feeling this is why Google choose to go with the term “labels” for Gmail. In our proposal we used the term “keywords” instead of tags because we felt the verbage was more mainstream and familiar to users.
Power to the people
Folksonomies are all about giving control over to the user. I think the more options you give your users over the content they are being fed, the better. So if using tags to group and classify content on your site makes it easier for the user, then give them the option, if not, let them browse through your structured content.
I think a great site that is executing the hybrid concept well right now is Healthline They provide a lose organization of content through their health channels, but then give users the ability to tag content under their own accounts.
Personalization
Back to the issue of giving users control over the experience. It’s clear that customization creates attachment to an experience. We love to customize anything we own or do because it makes us feel like we are own something.