What does word cloud do

Word cloud polls are an engaging way to display poll results and get to vital audience feedback. Word clouds can be an extremely effective way to understand what your audience is thinking and to help you visualise the main bits of feedback from your question. 

In this article we will answer these questions:

• What is a word cloud?
• What is a live word cloud?
• How do I create a word cloud poll in Vevox?
• When should I use Vevox for word cloud polling within lectures, meetings and presentations?
• How can Vevox’s word cloud polls help me better understand my audience?
• How do participants input their word cloud responses?
• Reasons to use word clouds
• Essential word cloud tips
• Getting started with Vevox word cloud polls

What is a word cloud?

A word cloud is a visual way to display text. It’s a graphic representation of words, where the size of the word corresponds to its frequency of occurrence in the text. Word clouds are often used to visualize large amounts of text or data.

Word clouds have become popular because they’re an easy way for people who aren’t familiar with statistics or visualization techniques to get an idea about what’s important in a given piece of writing or speech (and they’re fun!). They’re great for distilling large amount of feedback into key summary points! 

What is a live word cloud?

A live word cloud is a word cloud that is updated in real time, allowing it to be used for polling, brainstorming and audience feedback. The live aspect of this type of visual makes it ideal for displaying the results of in-the-moment discussions or for crowdsourcing. 

A live word cloud poll creates an engaging experience for your audience by allowing them to see how their votes compare with others’. It also provides you with valuable insight into what people are thinking about your question or topic at any given moment so that you can make better decisions about future content creation. 

How do I create a word cloud poll in Vevox?

Creating a word cloud poll in Vevox is easy. Sign up to a Vevox paid plan and select word cloud as your poll type in either the Vevox PowerPoint add-in or in your online Vevox dashboard. At this point, you can then enter the question that you want your audience to respond to. Make sure that your session is live and then run the poll with a click of the button and watch the results come through when you click «show results».  The results and your word cloud image is then stored in your dashboard to share with anyone or save on your computer. See how live word clouds work with Vevox below. 

 

When should I use Vevox for word cloud polling within lectures, meetings and presentations?

Vevox’s word cloud polling can work well for engage audiences at any point within a lecture or meeting, whether online, face-to-face or hybrid. That being said, word cloud polls can be effective tools for sparking engagement and discussion at various points during a presentation. For instance, word clouds are popular for icebreakers at a start of a presentation for sparking debate and getting everyone’s attention due to the nature of posing a open-ended question. Because they can be used to get open feedback in this way due to their versatile nature, they are also good for closing a presentation as well to summarise the content. Word cloud polls can also be used during sessiong to get a quick insight into the mindsets of your audience members; they can tell you what they’re thinking and how they feel towards a statement or topic. 

How can Vevox’s word cloud polls help me better understand my audience?

Live polling (in any kind of question format) is a great way to get feedback from your audience in the moment. Word clouds can be truly anonymous meaning you can get uninhibited feedback and get an accurate depiction of what the audience really thinks about the question you’ve posed.

The questions can be as meaningful or simple as you choose for instance: «What do you think of this new feature?» or «How are you feeling right now ?». The responses will then give you a direction of how the majority of your audience feels. But you always have all the responses stored to get a percentage of how people voted for your own further reporting. Word clouds can bring you closer to your audience by brainstorming together and really inviting a discussion. This active dialogue can help uncover points for further content down the line or help others to learn from peers. 

How do participants input their word cloud responses with Vevox?   

Once your word cloud poll is open, participants can enter multiple one word responses of their choice. For instance, if the question is «what are your top 3 three sports», someone could enter three words of «football», «golf» and «swimming». It’s a simple text box however running a test icebreaker poll is a good way to get everyone involved and ensure you have everything in check before running any important polls. 

As word cloud polls are a free entry text box, it means it’s a great way for gathering more detailed feedback or information, as it gives them complete freedom to write whatever they want! Vevox does have an automatic profanity filter so we’ve got you covered! However for peace of mind you do have control to filter out any responses you want to disregard in your word cloud. 

Reasons to use word clouds

• For sparking discussions via icebreaker questions or statements.
• For sentiment analysis and to understand your audience’s emotions or thinking.
• For crowdsourcing ideas and constructing meaningful brainstorms.
• For clearly visualizing audience data via text feedback.
• For fun and boosting audience morale.
• For summarizing a presentation for a visual takeaway.
• For demographic analysis.

Essential word cloud tips: 

• To keep your statement or question simple to respond to with a one word answer
• Participants can send in multiple response but should only send in a limited amount of words in one go… word clouds shouldn’t become sentence or essay clouds. 
• The volume of certain responses is reflected in the word cloud to show the most popular words.
• For clearly visualizing audience data via text feedback. 
• If you have a large audience then not all responses might be shown but they will be captured for your reporting. The aesthetic of a visually pleasing word cloud is important to revealing the most important trends within your audience. 
• The profanity can be turned on and will be automatically applied to word clouds. 
• As word clouds are open entry fields, give the audience time to think about what words they might want to enter. This is a more creative poll type then a multiple choice poll for instance. 
• The more word frequency, the better the word cloud poll will look!
• Try an ice breaker or test word cloud to before trying it out in an important part of a meeting or class. 

Start engaging YOUR audience with live word cloud polls… 

Live word clouds are a great way to visualize data, especially when you want to show audience feedback or ideas and to discuss them in real-time. We hope you found this article has provided you with a good overview of what a word cloud is and we’ve given you inspiration for using a live word cloud in your presentations.

If you’d like to learn more about word clouds and how you can use a live word cloud poll, read our resources here: 

• Sign up and use EVERYVOICE for 25% off a Vevox paid plan
• Word clouds with Vevox
• Live word clouds with Vevox in Microsoft Teams

Data visualizations (like charts, graphs, infographics, and more) give businesses a valuable way to communicate important information at a glance, but what if your raw data is text-based? If you want a stunning visualization format to highlight important textual data points, using a word cloud can make dull data sizzle and immediately convey crucial information.

When you’re looking at an in-depth data analysis, do you find it difficult to discern which points are the most important?

Anyone who’s ever stared blankly at a lengthy database or long pages of text can relate. With so many insights to comprehend, how do you know where to begin?

Word cloud generators can help simplify this process.

If you’ve ever looked at a jumble of disparate words that seem to have no correlation until you investigate further, you’ve seen a word cloud. These are powerful tools across myriad industries, from art to science.

Today, we’re exploring their use in the field of data visualization. Along the way, we’ll share how your organization can use them to help pinpoint important issues and better direct your steps forward.

Ready to learn more? Let’s get started!

What are Word Clouds?

Word clouds (also known as text clouds or tag clouds) work in a simple way: the more a specific word appears in a source of textual data (such as a speech, blog post, or database), the bigger and bolder it appears in the word cloud.

A word cloud is a collection, or cluster, of words depicted in different sizes. The bigger and bolder the word appears, the more often it’s mentioned within a given text and the more important it is.

Also known as tag clouds or text clouds, these are ideal ways to pull out the most pertinent parts of textual data, from blog posts to databases. They can also help business users compare and contrast two different pieces of text to find the wording similarities between the two.

Perhaps you’re already leveraging advanced data visualization techniques to turn your important analytics into charts, graphs, and infographics. This is an excellent first step, as our brains prefer visual information over any other format.

Yet, what do you do if your raw data is text-based in nature?

Much of the research your organization conducts will include at least some form of an open-ended inquiry that prompts respondents to give a textual answer.

For instance, you might ask current customers what they like or don’t like about your new product line. Or, you could ask them to give suggestions on how your organization could improve. They could also have the chance to elaborate on any pain points they’re experiencing.

There are industry tools that allow you to code such open-ended data so users can understand it quantitatively. Yet, these don’t come cheap. Word clouds offer a cost-effective, yet powerful, alternative.

With these, you can still quantify your text-based insights into measurable analytics. The only difference? You won’t create a chart or graph as you would with a set of numbers.

Instead, you’ll create a word cloud generator to transform the most critical information into a word cloud.

Here’s an example from USA Today using U.S. President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Speech 2012:

As you can see, words like “American,” “jobs,” “energy” and “every” stand out since they were used more frequently in the original text.

Now, compare that to the 2014 State of the Union address:

You can easily see the similarities and differences between the two speeches at a glance. “America” and “Americans” are still major words, but “help,” “work,” and “new” are more prominent than in 2012.

Using word clouds isn’t exclusively for creating presidential eye candy. Keep reading to discover how word clouds can benefit your business.

Where Word Clouds Excel for Businesses

In the right setting, word cloud visualizations are a powerful tool. Here are a few instances when word clouds excel:

• Finding customer pain points — and opportunities to connect. Do you collect feedback from your customers? (You should!) Analyzing your customer feedback can allow you to see what your customers like most about your business and what they like least. Pain points (such as “wait time,” “price,” or “convenience”) are very easy to identify with text clouds.
• Understanding how your employees feel about your company. Text cloud visualization can turn employee feedback from a pile of information you’ll read through later to an immediately valuable company feedback that positively drives company culture.
• Identifying new SEO terms to target. In addition to normal keyword research techniques, using a word cloud may make you aware of potential keywords to target that your site content already uses.

When Word Clouds Don’t Work

As mentioned, word clouds aren’t perfect for every situation. You wouldn’t use a pie chart to show company revenue growth over time, and you shouldn’t use word clouds for every application, either. Here’s when you want to avoid using a word cloud.

• When your data isn’t optimized for context. Simply dumping text into a word cloud generator isn’t going to give you the deep insights you want. Instead, an optimized data set (one handled by an experienced data analysis team) will give you accurate insights.
• When another visualization method would work better. It’s easy to think “Word Clouds are neat!” and overuse them — even when a different visualization should be used instead. You need to make sure you understand the right use case for a word cloud visualization.

There are many other instances when a different visualization should be used over word clouds. (Feel free to contact one of our data analysts to learn more.) More complex data sets and projects require a team of developers and designers for a complete transformation. In could an infographic or dashboard, but word cloud applications are limited to, well, words.

What is a Word Cloud Generator?

As its name implies, an online word cloud generator is a tool that scans a body of text, turning it into component words.

From there, it can create a word cloud that highlights the most frequently mentioned words. If you don’t prefer the cluster shape, most tools enable you to format the word cloud in various ways, including:

• Horizontal lines
• Columns
• Formed to fit a certain shape

Most providers will also allow users to choose different layouts, fonts and color schemes depending on their preference. This means you can make one to match the color scheme of your brand, your partners, or your clients.

While the color used on a word cloud holds a primarily aesthetic value, you can contrast the hues to help categorize words or illustrate a separate data variable.

Why Use a Word Cloud Generator?

Think word clouds aren’t relevant to your organization? Think again.

These are an unexpected yet powerful way to display important data visualizations. Let’s take a look at a few of the top ones.

1. Understanding Client Issues

How are you currently analyzing your customer satisfaction levels? From polls and surveys to social media posts and more, your audience is talking about your brand.

As they do so, they’re delivering valuable insights into the psyche of your target customer. What’s making them tick and what to do they love? Are there any issues that seem to pop up time and again?

It can be difficult to find the answers to these questions if you’re simply reading each comment on an individual basis. Yet, when you create a word cloud with this feedback, you can quickly visualize what everyone is talking about.

For instance, you might notice that phrases such as “wait time” or “attitude” appear to dominate the cloud. This can reveal your customers’ pain points.

Or, you might see positive terms such as “affordable” and “customer service” towering over others, revealing what you’re doing right. Either way, you’ll know which topics to focus on at your next meeting, and you’re already one step in the direction of change.

2. Quickening Business Actions

That important marketing research report just came in at 5:00 p.m. The only problem? It’s 50 pages long.

You’d love to read through it line by line, but you don’t have enough hours in the day, and you’re supposed to give a brief on the data the next morning. This is where a word cloud generator can help.

When you copy the text into the generator and let it do its job, you can see in seconds which talking points appear the most frequently. Then, you’ll know where to start your search to hit the most important parts.

3. Analyzing Employee Sentiment

When you ask employees to share their feedback and opinions about the workplace, what do you do with those responses? It can be difficult to turn this kind of unstructured data into meaningful action if you don’t know where to start.

This is where word cloud visualizations can help.

When you’re able to see which points your employees are discussing at the highest rate, you’ll know how to make valuable and meaningful changes that can boost morale, strengthen company culture, and improve performance.

4. Simplifying Technical Data

You could present highly technical researching findings to a non-technical audience, such as your community board of directors. Yet, when you do so, it’s common to look into an audience of blank stares.

When you present a word cloud instead, you’re able to share the same findings in a more accessible and engaging way. This expands your reach and enables you to share important information in a way that doesn’t require advanced technical understanding.

5. Searching for Patterns in Data

With quantitative data, charts, graphs, and other data visualizations can help you identify key patterns. However, pulling these same insights from qualitative data can prove cumbersome at best and impossible at worst.

A word cloud generator makes this process a cinch. Those words you see overpowering the others? Those are your salient points and overlapping themes.

These would be difficult to find in a tabular format, but they pop out in a word cloud.

6. Search Engine Optimization

You have a good basic grasp on the kinds of keywords that your target audience wants to see. In fact, you might even use a keyword generator to find the most popular ones in your industry niche.

However, do you really know how Google sees your website?

The answer to this question can make or break your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy.

You can use a word cloud generator to see how your content appears to Google bots and similar machines. While it won’t reveal the more technical elements of SEO such as headers, backlinks, and alt tags, it does help you see the general message that your page conveys.

This is important because when Google “looks” at your page, it does so by scanning its content and code. You might think you’re getting the right points across, but do they really dominate? Your word cloud can reveal if you’re giving enough attention to the keywords that matter.

How to Make a Word Cloud

As shown by their increasing popularity, making a word cloud for your website or business isn’t difficult, but there are some important considerations that need to be made so your visualization is more than just eye-candy. While word clouds can be incredible tools for data visualization, it’s important to understand how to use them the right way.

Step 1: Optimize Your Data Set

First, you’ll want to get a valuable, text-based data set. Make sure the data set you’re using is both text-based and optimized for context. Copying and pasting just any textual data into a word cloud generator might not give you the exact insights you need.

Not sure where to begin?

Our team of data analysts is skilled in taking unstructured text and turning it into an optimized data set. First, we’ll help you make sure the source data you’re referencing is both usable and actionable. Then, we’ll compile it in a way that draws out the most interesting and relevant content. Having an experienced analyst compile this helps to ensure your source data is actually usable.

Step 2: Use a Word Cloud Generator Tool

Once your data set is in place, your next step is to run it through a word cloud generator tool. Many businesses like and use Wordle, but there are many others you can try, too (such as Tagxedo and WordItOut). The downside to these free tools is many sites, including Wordle, automatically add all text clouds to their portfolio. This means any site visitor can see it, potentially undermining your marketing efforts. (Check your individual tool’s policies to see if your word cloud will be used in this way.)There are many online resources and apps you can use to perform this step, including:

• Wordle
• Tagxedo
• Tag Crowd
• WordItOut
• Word Cloud Generator for Chrome
• Word Cloud Python tools
• Google Word Cloud tools

Step 3: Export the Word Cloud

Once you create your word cloud, you need to move it from the program to your files. Some platforms will enable you to download the image as a PDF, although many won’t make that easy. In some cases, you’ll have to take a screenshot of the image and save it that way.

Before you close out of the program and start reviewing the data, there’s one security precaution to keep in mind.

While most of the programs above are either free or low-priced, keep in mind that there can be some drawbacks to the convenience they offer. For instance, any time you create a word cloud in Wordle, it saves it to its virtual portfolio.

This might not be a deal-breaker if the data you’re compiling and analyzing isn’t confidential or highly sensitive. Yet, if you work in an industry (such as healthcare or banking) that emphasizes confidentiality and customer data protection, this can render the service unusable.

It’s also a drawback if you’re using a word cloud for marketing purposes. If anyone can search Wordle’s portfolio, there’s nothing stopping them from tapping into your most compelling data.

An easier, safer and all-around better route to take? Create your word cloud from scratch rather than relying on an online program to do the work for you.

Exporting your word cloud from a free tool might take some work. Sometimes, if download as an image or PDF isn’t available, you’ll be forced to take a screenshot – a less-than-elegant solution.

Here’s what to do if you really want your word cloud to be noticed: consider designing your word cloud from scratch!

Does this sound like a lot for you to handle in-house? Not all companies have (or need) an in-house data analyst. Our experienced team at Boost Labs has experience working with enterprise clients such as the U.S. Census Bureau, small businesses like individual websites, and everything in-between.

Creating Your Own Word Cloud

Sure, it’s simple to plug your text into a virtual generator and receive your custom word cloud in seconds. Yet, as we’ve discussed, this can put your most critical data sets in a vulnerable position.

Instead, why not let our team take the reins and create a one-of-a-kind word cloud that’s all yours? This eliminates the risk of your information falling into the wrong hands.

A data visualization expert can also help you pinpoint the most cloud-worthy parts of your unstructured data set so you’re not sifting through tomes of irrelevant data, attempting to make disjointed parts connect.

We’ll work with the most insight-rich parts and deliver a personalized graphic that you can use in your short-term and long-term department planning efforts.

The Best Word Cloud Generators Are Custom

Around the world, we’re creating and sharing more data than ever before and the trend shows no sign of stopping down.

From sales numbers to online traffic rates, you’ve likely got plenty of quantitative data to analyze and discuss. Yet, are you making as much use out of your qualitative inputs?

These are often some of the most insightful data points your organization can leverage. They’re full of opinion, long-form feedback, and personal reflection. Word cloud generators can help make the most of this content, one visual at a time.

Are you ready to discover the power of word clouds for yourself? We’d love to help.

We’re data visualization experts, dedicated to helping companies turn mind-numbing data into interactive and informative graphics, charts, tables and more. Contact us today and let’s discover something new together.

Let us help you with data visualization.

Word clouds or tag clouds are graphical representations of word frequency that give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in a source text. The larger the word in the visual the more common the word was in the document(s).

Similarly, What is the purpose of word cloud?

A Word Cloud is a collection or cluster of words depicted in different sizes. The bigger and bolder the word appears, the more often it is selected/voted for by an audience member. Word Clouds are a powerful way to visualise what your audience really thinks about a topic.

Hence, How do you create a word cloud?
You can make a word cloud in 5 easy steps:

1. You can make a word cloud in 5 easy steps:
2. Join Infogram to make your own tag cloud design.
3. Select a word cloud chart type.
4. Upload or copy and paste your data.
5. Customize colors, fonts, and text orientation.
6. Download your word cloud or embed it on your website.

Can Excel do a word cloud? A word cloud, or tag cloud, is a visual representation of keywords within a text. To generate a professional word cloud using MonkeyLearn’s word cloud generator, just upload your Excel data and click ‘generate word cloud’.

Beside above, How is word cloud useful in working with text data?

Word Cloud provides an excellent option to analyze the text data through visualization in the form of tags, or words, where the importance of a word is explained by its frequency. In this guide, we will learn how to create word clouds and find important words that can help in extracting insights from the data.

What is the best free word cloud generator?

10 Best Free Word Cloud Generators

• MonkeyLearn WordCloud Generator | Free word clouds powered by AI.
• WordArt.com | Design-led word art generator.
• Wordclouds.com | Highly customizable tag cloud creator.
• WordItOut | Simple word cloud generator.
• Jason Davies | Wordle-inspired word cloud generator.

How do you text a word cloud?

1. Upload Your Data to The Word Cloud Generator. Choose your text source and upload it to the word cloud tool by pasting text, or uploading a document. …
2. Generate Your Word Cloud. You will see your word cloud in a matter of seconds. …
3. Customize Your Word Cloud. …
4. Download Your Word Cloud. …
5. TagCrowd. …
6. Wordclouds. …
7. WordItOut. …
8. Jason Davies.

What does a word cloud look like?

Google says a word cloud is “an image composed of words used in a particular text or subject, in which the size of each word indicates its frequency or importance.” So, the more often a specific word appears in your text, the bigger and bolder it appears in your word cloud.

Does zoom do word clouds?

Simply put, a Zoom word cloud is an interactive word cloud that’s shared over Zoom (or any other video-calling software) usually during a virtual meeting, webinar or online lesson.

How do I make a word cloud for free?

Free online Wordcloud generator

Wordclouds.com works on your PC, Tablet or smartphone. Paste text, upload a document or open an URL to automatically generate a word- or tag cloud. Or enter individual words manually in the word list. Pick a shape, select colors and fonts and choose how to draw the words.

Where can I get word cloud options?

The 10 best word cloud generators

• WordArt.com. WordArt.com (formerly Tagul) creates stunning images, and is easily one of the best word cloud generators out there. …
• WordClouds.com. …
• Wordle. …
• Jason Davies’ word cloud generator. …
• Abcya.com. …
• TagCrowd. …
• WordItOut. …
• Tagxedo.

What is word cloud example?

That way is to put a tilde “~” or underscore “_” between each word in the phrase. For example, “apples~and~oranges” would appear as “apples and oranges” in the word cloud.

How do I create a word cloud image?

How many words make a word cloud?

Word clouds usually look better with 20–100 words or phrases, but the format settings offer a wide range of flexibility. If you choose too many words, they can become too small to be legible, depending on the size of your display. By default, word clouds display 100 distinct words.

How are word clouds used in the classroom?

Using Word Clouds in the Classroom

1. Put your course outline into a Word Cloud and use it at the beginning of a course.
2. Place key terms or vocabulary words into a Word Cloud.
3. Have the entire class create a Word Cloud to review as an end-day activity.

How many words make a word cloud?

17 words can be made from the letters in the word cloud.

How are word clouds used in the classroom?

Here are just a few ways to incorporate Word Clouds into your curriculum:

1. Put your course outline into a Word Cloud and use it at the beginning of a course.
2. Place key terms or vocabulary words into a Word Cloud.
3. Have the entire class create a Word Cloud to review as an end-day activity.

Does Slido do word clouds?

In Slido, creating a word cloud and running it during an online meeting or event is as easy as 1-2-3. If you don’t have a Slido account yet, create one below and you can try it for yourself. It’s free.

Are word clouds effective?

Word clouds can be a highly effective tool to boost interaction in online, hybrid or F2F lectures or meetings. This visualization tool collates words that audience participants have submitted via an ARS (online audience response system) and enlarges the most popular words that have been sent in.

How do I create a word cloud in Canva?

Is Pro word cloud free?

Pro Word Cloud is a Microsoft add-in that is free and can create world clouds with your custom text directly in PowerPoint.

What is the best word cloud app?

Top Word Cloud Generators

1. Wordart. Wordart is an online word art generator that promises to help you make wonderful designs even without graphic design knowledge. …
2. WordClouds. …
3. WordIt Out. …
4. ABCya! …
5. TagCrowd. …
6. Monkeylearn WordCloud Generator. …
7. Jason Davies Word Cloud.

What is a good question for a word cloud?

In one word, how would you describe your past week/month? Tip: Word clouds look best with one-word or two-word answers. To make your participants submit such short answers, consider starting the word cloud question with “In one word, what do you …” or “Using just one word, which is your…”

• Reference 1
• Reference 2
• Reference 3
• Reference 4
• Reference 5

Word clouds are a great creative tool that many of us love to play around with. They generate an image composed of words from content that has been submitted in the tool. The size of individual words in the word cloud indicates its frequency or importance.

However, word clouds are also very useful tools for conversion rate optimisation, content creation, brand evaluation, competitor analysis, SEO keyword targeting and analysis of qualitative research.

1. Marketing Content:

Finding images that are suitable for your blog or social media posts can be time consuming and problematic as many images are protected by copyright and have permissions which restrict usage. However, we know from research that blog posts with images have much higher engagement levels and are more likely to be shared. So, to save time and money copy and paste your new blog post into a word cloud to create a free and unique image for your new content.

2. Evaluate Your Value Proposition:

Word clouds are also useful to evaluate how well your value proposition messages are embedded in your content. Check how well your brand messages are being communicated by plugging in your website address or social media URL.

World cloud tools like Tagxedo allow you to input your Twitter and social media feeds. This can highlight the value of the content you are sharing and allow you to identify the themes that are occurring most often. Do these correspond with how you want to be perceived by your social media followers?

Analyse your LinkedIn profile in a word cloud generator to ensure your profile communicates a professional tone and is using the best words to promote your expertise.

If you have a Yelp page, use a word cloud to assess how your customers describe your service.

3. SEO Keyword Audit:

Word clouds are a great SEO tool as they instantly indicate which words are most prominent in your marketing content and how Google or other search engines are likely to assess your content.

4. Competitor Research:

Just as you can evaluate your own marketing content and keywords using a word cloud, you can also use the same approach to undertake some competitor research. Plug in your competitor’s URL into a word cloud to identify the keywords they are targeting and how consistent their value proposition is communicated.

5. Analysing Customer Feedback:

Customer feedback is not just collected through online polls and surveys. Customer conversations are also a great source of feedback, whether via telephone calls, live chat, emails or product ratings and reviews. You will probably be surprised at the number of sources potentially available to you and the volume of feedback.

Don’t let the volume of feedback put you off as word clouds are an excellent means for processing verbatim customer conversations to obtain quick and clear insights. Such conversations can be a great source of insights for developing hypothesis for A/B tests.

However, before proceeding with using a word cloud to analyse customer conversations it is wise to do some preparatory work to clean up your transcripts or survey responses. Otherwise you may find that duplicate feedback or similar meaning terms reduce the effectiveness of your word cloud at communicating key insights.

Duplicate Responses:

It’s not uncommon for some visitors to answer a survey or leave feedback multiple times. Unless this is dealt with a single customer can skew your analysis, especially if they have repeated the same comments on multiple occasions.

This is often easy to spot if the respondent has to leave an email address or another unique identifier. Once you have identified the culprits go through and review their feedback and delete all but the first response. It’s better to be consistent with your method as otherwise you will be bringing in subjective bias into the analysis.

Combining Terms:

I once launched a poll on a homepage on a mobile responsive website by asking the open-ended question; “What is missing on this page?” We received lots of comments from mobile visitors about being unable to login, sign in or see the login box. All of these responses obviously related to the same issue and so it was sensible to combine the terms. This can easily be done by using the “Replace” function in a spreadsheet.

It’s also worth looking out for plurals and replacing such terms with the singular version of the word. Acronyms can also be problematic if some respondents use the full phrase and so search for such inconsistencies to replace acronyms where necessary.

Weighting Results:

When presenting word clouds you sometimes want to give more weight to certain terms because of what you know about their impact on your business. For instance you may want to give more prominence to feedback on your most popular webpages or blogs in your word cloud.

Word cloud tool Wordle allows you to change the weighting of certain words by making adjustments in the advanced mode. For example you could weight words according page views to reflect the popularity of a page or blog they relate to. However, make sure you make this clear when you present your word cloud as otherwise this can create a misleading impression of the feedback received.

Conclusion:

Word clouds are flexible and free tools that can save you time and money. Before you splash out money on buying competitor analysis, SEO keyword audits or text analytics tools try out word clouds first.

Below are nine of the best free word cloud solutions available.

The 9 Best Free Word Cloud Tools:

My recommended word cloud is Wordclouds.com as this is an easy to use but flexible tool with some great advanced settings. Visually it also looks superior to most other tools.

1. ABCya!:

A word cloud for kids that may be relevant if your website is of interest to children. Type or paste text into the box below and press the arrow button to view the word cloud generated.

Jason Davies:

A great tool if you want to generate a word cloud from a blog or website.

Tagcrowd: 

Allows you to set specific criteria for your cloud such as language, maximum number of words and minimum frequency. Allows you to create a word cloud from a webpage URL, Twitter ID and other social media feeds.

Tagxedo: 

Create word clouds from a URL, Twitter ID, Del.icio.us ID, news, search, RSS feed, uploading text or enter it yourself.

WordArt (Formerly Tagul):

A word cloud generator with advanced features including words inside words, rich font choices, roll-over effects, custom shapes, colours and fonts and export in vector formats.

Tricklar:

This site claims to use high quality media sources from around the world to generate word clouds. I found it difficult to find words or phrases that it would generate a word cloud for and so maybe only useful for popular subjects.

Wordclouds.com:

This is a free word cloud generator which can be used with most browsers. On the homepage got o “File” and upload a document or PDF, paste text (by File dropdown), input a URL or amend the word list (dropdown). In the word list you can even add links to individual words by entering the URL after the word.

WorditOut:

Advanced filters allows you to filter the text to display or remove words and change their importance. Select your own layout by choosing your own colours, fonts, and sizes or let WorditOut find a random look for you.

Wordle:

A simple word cloud generator which allows you to set the weights of words.

Время на прочтение
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Количество просмотров 3.4K

Всем привет! Хочу продемонстрировать вам, как я использовал библиотеку WordCloud для создания подарка для друга/подруги. Я решил составить облако слов по переписке с человеком, чтобы выделить основные темы, которые мы обсуждаем.

Выгружаем переписку

Для начала нам нужно будет выгрузить переписку из ВК. Как это сделать? Очень просто! Я пользовался расширением для браузера «VkOpt». Скачиваем его и устанавливаем. Теперь заходим в диалог с человеком, переписку с которым хотим скачать.

Наводим на три точки и выбираем «сохранить переписку». Далее будет окно с выбором типа файла. Я предпочитаю json.

Обработка переписки

Импортируем json и открываем наш файл с перепиской.

import json
vk = open('vk2.json', 'r', encoding='utf8')
vk = json.load(vk)

Теперь давайте выведем его и посмотрим как он выглядит.

Ну в общем всё ясно, массив таких вот сообщений. Каждый элемент соответствует одному облако-сообщению.

Давайте теперь вытащим из каждого сообщения его текст и разделим этот текст на слова.

mas = []
for i in range(len(vk)):
    mas.append(vk[i]['body'].split())
    
data = []
for i in mas:
    for j in range(len(i)):
        data.append(i[j].lower())

Теперь у нас есть массив data, в котором каждый элемент — это одно слово. Далее создадим большую строку, в которую просто запишем через пробел все наши слова.

big_string=''
for i in range(len(data)):
    big_string+=(data[i]+' ')

WordCloud

Почти всё готово, теперь давайте воспользуемся библиотекой WordCloud и построим наше облако слов.

pip install wordcloud

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline

from wordcloud import WordCloud, STOPWORDS
wordCloud = WordCloud(width = 10000, height = 10000, random_state=1, background_color='black', colormap='Set2', collocations=False).generate(big_string)

plt.figure(figsize=(5,5))
plt.imshow(wordCloud)

Убираем стоп-слова

Так, и что же это? Не очень похоже на оригинальный подарок. Естественно всё не так просто. Дело в том, что в нашей речи и сообщениях встречается куча стоп-слов. Собственно, эти слова вы и видите на картинке. Они встречались в диалоге чаще всего, поэтому алгоритм выделил их крупным шрифтом.

Теперь наша задача: почистить строку от ненужный слов. Для этого скачаем словарик стоп-слов русского языка(https://snipp.ru/seo/stop-ru-words). Он представлен как обычный txt-шник, а значит прочитаем его и разделим по переносу строки.

stop_words = open('stop-ru.txt', 'r', encoding='utf8')
stop_words = stop_words.read()
stop_words = stop_words.split('n')

Далее создадим массив clear_data, куда будем заносить слова из массива data, которые не содержатся в списке стоп-слов(т. е. нормальные слова).

clear_data=[]
for i in data:
    if(i not in stop_words):
        clear_data.append(i)

А теперь формируем нашу большую строку, только теперь из нового массива и заново строим WordCloud.

big_string=''
for i in range(len(clear_data)):
    big_string+=(clear_data[i]+' ')
    
wordCloud = WordCloud(width = 10000, height = 10000, random_state=1, background_color='black', colormap='Set2', collocations=False).generate(big_string)
plt.figure(figsize=(5,5))
plt.imshow(wordCloud)

Результат на лицо. Начинает проявляться оттенок переписки с тем или иным человеком. Ну и, естественно, куда же мы русского могучего, он тоже начинает проявляться на изображении, приходится его замазывать

Переходим на ручное управление

Так, вроде стоп-слова убрали, но картинка всё равно не выглядит привлекательной. В выборке остались различные выражения, которые мы часто используем в переписке. Например, мои слова паразиты: «ок», «ща», «крч». Что делать? Все просто. Открываем наш текстовик с русскими стоп-слова и просто вписываем туда слова, которые не должны присутствовать в новом облаке слов(не забудьте сохранить текстовик, перед повторным чтением).

P.S. На самом деле есть и второй вариант удалить слова паразиты. Создадим массив, который заполним словами паразитами, и подадим его как параметр в WordCloud. Тоже хороший вариант, но мне больше нравится с текстовиком.

stopw = ['а', 'ок', 'крч'] #массив слов, которые хотим удалить
#подадим массив stopw в WordCloud как параметр stopwords
wordCloud = WordCloud(width = 1000, height = 1000, random_state=1, 
                      background_color='black', colormap='Set2', 
                      collocations=False, stopwords=stopw).generate(big_string)

Таким образом, мы всё глубже и глубже погружаемся в чертоги нашей переписки. Обычно появляются слова, соответствующие темам, которые вы и ваш друг часто обсуждаете.

Форма облака слов

Теперь давайте воспользуемся одной фишкой WordCloud. Оформим наше облако слов в виде какой-то картинки. Я выберу банальное сердечко)

from PIL import Image
original_image = Image.open('путь до картинки')
image = original_image.resize([2000,2000], Image.ANTIALIAS)
image = np.array(image)

Подадим в функцию нашу картинку как параметр mask.

wordCloud = WordCloud(width = 1000, height = 1000, random_state=1, 
                      background_color='black', colormap='Set2', 
                      collocations=False, stopwords=stopw, mask=image).generate(big_string)

Вот такая штука у меня получилась.

По-хорошему, нужно удалить ещё около десятка слов, для более-менее приятной картины, но я уверен ту вы справитесь сами)

P.S. Выбирайте черно-белые изображения предметов. Лучше всего, если они выглядят как силуэты. С .png у меня не прошло, поэтому я сохранял в .jpg, может быть у вас получится.

Итог

Я нарисовал облако слов, которое отражает тональность переписки с тем или иным человеком. Дополнительно, в облаке содержатся слова, которые соответствуют тем темам, которые вы часто обсуждали в диалоге. Как вариант, можно сохранить эту картинку, распечатать, поставить в рамочку и вручить как подарок вашему собеседнику. Ему будет очень приятно, ведь всегда интересно посмотреть на то, как оценивает вашу переписку алгоритм)