Controled vocabulary tagging

After watching another great TED talk I decided to rate it. So I discovered a great example of controlled vocabulary tagging. The method TED uses to rate their talks is a little unusual, in that they don’t ask users to rate the talk on a scale but to describe the talk with words. To tag it with words they think matches the talk.

But this is not just a standard tag based system either. When a user first selects the rate it button they are presented with a list of adjectives to describe the talk they have just seen. They are also told they have three votes to allocate to these listed adjectives, either one vote each to three different ones or divided between two or less. This lets the user feel a great deal of control over how they are rating a talk. Especially on the first time rating where the user has not yet seen the ratings screen.

Once the user has entered their votes and submitted them they are then presented with a tag cloud of terms showing how they and everyone else has voted.

So some people would think that calling this tagging is a mistake in terminology, but I think the name fits. A user is still tagging the media with their choice of terms, they just have a more limited vocabulary to work from. Is this a useful way of rating talks, well I think yes and it could also lead to some very useful ways to navigate the site based upon these ratings.

But how could it be better? Well apart from some simple UI points concerning small hit areas for the ratings boxes, required explanatory text and the ratings method being un-obvious, I think the greatest area for improvement is around the controlled vocabulary itself. How about a system where users were allowed to suggest more terms if they thought they had somthing more appropriate. The system could remain a controlled vocabualry system in that various methods could be used to control the flow of new terms. firstly the mere fact that a user would have to enter the new terms themselves would lead to them being less common, but if certain ones keep appearing then the offered vocabulary could be extended, or altered as some terms removed if little used. Editing of tag submissions could also eradicate synonyms and the appearance of extra tags on the ratings cloud could prove interesting for users. For users of course most of this would be invisible, they would just have an option at the bottom of the form to add their own tag.