A
"word or tag cloud" is a graphical representation of how frequently
words are used. In most examples the relative sizes of the words are correlated
with the frequency of their use in the document, speech or as in the example to
the left, our blog posts from the last year.
A few
very bright folks, like New York Times “senior software architect and news hacker” Jacob Harris and “Big Web Show” host Jeffrey
Zeldman, don’t think much of word clouds. As far back as 2005, Zeldman
famously referred to them as “mullets
of the Internet”. I agree with Harris. If the goal is telling a
complex story, word clouds are a poor choice. They're divorced from the underlying
narrative and require explanation to reveal context. Thankfully, the people who run community justice projects like the Harlem Community Justice Center, the Midtown Community Court, Bronx
Community Solutions, the Red Hook Community Justice Center are writing about court and community-based innovations that help transform the lives of
offenders, improve public safety and increase the public's confidence in the
courts. You can learn more by following the links listed
under "Blogs we follow" or visiting the Center for
Court Innovation website.
But if you’re interests are limited to word usage, a word cloud is worth a
shot. Besides, they look pretty snazzy on a t-shirt.
No comments:
Post a Comment