Sep 25 2007
New Alertbox: Proper Tab Design
Jakob Nielson’s latest post to Alertbox offers 13 concrete guidelines to proper tab design. Using Yahoo Finance as example of tabs done right, Nielson describes what works and what doesn’t in Yahoo approach to tabs.
“AJAX Overkill: It’s good when a tab click takes effect immediately, changing the panel area without a full page reload. But not all within-the-page updates are good.
“On the Yahoo Finance page, stock quotes are updated in real time and each change is announced by a color flashing behind the affected number. The constant flashing all over the screen gets tiring fast, especially for numbers like volume, which change incessantly.
“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should. Yes, it is a guideline to draw users’ attention to updates within a page, but only when users need to be alerted. In this case, all users need to know is that all numbers are current and will be continually updated.”
Source: Useit.com Alertbox, September 19, 2007
Full story: Tabs, Used Right