What do you think is the most friendly and intuitive method of navigation in web 2.0 websites?
Browsing through categories is far more intuitive method for navigating. in order to make a good search with full text you have to know exactly what you are looking for, or you'll get lost. Tag clouds are nice but can be quite confusing sometimes.
By using categories I have discovered in several occasions, subjects and sub-categories that I didn't even know about, that fitted my needs even better than the original category I was looking for.
I think it depends on the situation. If I am looking for something specific, then obviously a text search is the better way to go. If I am looking to browse more generally, then I prefer categories.
Personally, I don't see a difference between categories and tag clouds. I know on my blog (http://blogiza.typepad.com) , I use the tags basically as categories, with the advantage that you can have the same post appear in several different categories.
The main differences between categories and tags, as I see them are:
- Categories are usually a predefined where tags are more user generated and flexible.- Categories tend to be displayed in a tree structure where tags are normally displayed in a flat structure.- Categories normally don’t include a visual display that reflects popularity. Tags on the other hands are normally displayed in a buzz cloud that reflects the tag’s popularity.
The question is what is more effective / friendly the simple predefined set of categories or the limitless, flexible tags?
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