Contribution: Tags, Labels, and Keywords

[vsnichols]

Description

This issue is to propose expanding on Carbon's "tag" concept now that user-defined tags are being built. We would like to work with Carbon to explore ways of differentiating user-defined tags. One option is that we reserve the pill shape for user-defined tags, and possibly introduce two new components, labels (smaller pills used for "beta", "new", "deprecated", etc) and keywords ("web app", "tutorial").

Research

The pill-shaped tag is no longer used in the IBM Cloud Catalog (instead catalog information is styled as metadata).

However the pill-shaped tag continues to be used by different services. There is currently no alignment on color or usage. Sometimes it is used for keywords and metadata, at other times to highlight a change (for example, "new" or "beta").

Early Explorations

On July 6 we met with Anna Gonzales and Tayler Aitken from Carbon to discuss ways of differentiating the new user-defined tags from the existing Carbon tags, given that they continue to be used even after being removed from the Catalog.

These are some early ideas:

Option #1: Making user-defined tags squarish

Option #2: Remove grey Carbon tag (too similar to user-defined tags)

**Option #3: Make Carbon tags squarish **

Our goal is to avoid confusion between the user-defined tags, which may eventually be clickable, and these other tag types. It may be enough to take option #2 (above) and remove the grey Carbon tag.

However, given that users are confused by the fact that the current tags are not clickable, and given the wide range in usage, we would also like to consider creating new label and keyword components that address the way that services are currently using tags.

We would like to discuss both options with Carbon.

Team

Contact: Virginia Nicholson, Design Lead, Tag Team

Tag Team members:
Kala Nenkova, OM
Zeus Courtois, Dev Lead
Becca Ellsworth, Dev
Trevor Wong, Dev
Alex Kim, Dev

[vsnichols]

@aagonzales This is the issue I created per Tayler's recommendation after our discussion on how to differentiate user-defined tags from the existing ones