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Re: Are Tag Clouds Accessible

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From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Apr 27, 2007 2:30PM

Philip Kiff wrote:

> I haven't used tag clouds myself, but at a superficial glance, the
> del.icio.us usage in your example seems accessible enough to me: they offer
> the option of sorting the list alphabetically (default) or "by size". If
> you sort the list of tags by size, then a non-visual user agent will be able
> to extract the same information that is currently conveyed by size/colour to
> other users.

I'd argue that, even when sorted by size, a non-visual user agent only
conveys the order, and not the actual relative relationship. For
instance, if we had

apples (10) oranges (15) bananas (400) coconuts (10)

in the visual way, the link for bananas would be considerably larger
than the others by quite a large factor. Just putting that list in order

bananas oranges apples coconuts

indicates the relative order, yes, but the fact that bananas were just
so overwhelmingly more tagged than the others, and that apples and
coconuts are on par, is lost.

Sorry, got carried away with my fruit paradigm there :)

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke