The scariest interface contest

Don't miss this wonderful contest on OK/CANCEL:

This week we'’re taking entries for the scariest interface youÂ’ve ever used. Leave a comment and a screenshot link. Feel free to show stuff that frightens you because of how it looks, works, or what it does. Then we'll '“interface your fears'” (har har) by talking about how to improve ‘em.

The person who has the scariest interface, or comes up with the best fix wins something cool.

Some pretty good (scary) stuff on there.

How's about we do the same, leave a comment with a link to the tag-a-whatever web site (you can select from the ones listed in tag-o-verse 2.0 or come up with your own) with the most confusing and frustrating interface.

This might actually turn out to be a somewhat useful exercise...

What will you win? Don't know. Maybe a golden tag.

Tags: tags tagging folksonomy web2.0 ui userinterface contest worst

Tagging UI

Well, Yahoo! recently introduced a beta version of their own social-bookmarking-tagging-sharing thingie - My Web 2.0 (a revamped version of the original My Web service introduced in April).

Yes, it tags. Tags are comma-separated, non-hierarchical.

Does this settle the argument?

Well, a Yahoo!-branded social-bookmarking-tagging-sharing thingie may settle more than one argument... might save a lot of time in those VC weekly investment committee meetings...

Does it all really matter? Danny Sullivan did a fascinating post on tagging and why it sucks. Some excerpts:

"Yahoo talked to me this week about how 70 percent of all items on Flickr are tagged, but then it immediately qualified without prompting that because Flickr is a photo service, tagging is much more essential."

"...But what happens when you've created hundreds of tags for thousands of pages? Are you going to browse pages? Everyone largely abandoned browsing directory categories ages ago because keyword search was like a warp drive to zip you to what you wanted..."

Good stuff.