Back to tabs (was RE: [Sigia-l] My gratitude)

[David Heller]

Someone was talking about Tabs, right?
How useful and wonderful they are and how the metaphor of a lens was being
used?
That they were good b/c they had a real world and virtually understood
mental model.

I think the problem w/ tabs is not what they could be but what they've
become. They are not different lens onto the same information, or different
taxonomies of the same information set, but rather they are just blocks.
This tab has different stuff from that tab; its pretty much that simple, no?

Lens to me implies that I have the same exact information but I'm looking at
it w/ different refraction. I think of this as "views" as in different ways
to look at events: list vs. calendar or daily vs. monthly.

What I see tabs being used for is either taxonomy: Music vs. DVDs or just
navigation: About us & Contact Us. That might be taxonomy but I don't think
so.

So I like tabs, except they are limited in their scalability, especially
horizontal tabs. (thus the Amazon dilema).

-- dave

Ps. I'm lookin' at widgetopia ... Nice addition to the community!