Re: [Epiphany] Re: Tabs options

[Marco Pesenti Gritti <marco gnome org>]

Il ven, 2003-08-29 alle 20:57, Luis Villa ha scritto:
> On Fri, 2003-08-29 at 14:46, David Adam Bordoley wrote:
> > Luis Villa writes:
> > > 
> > > I'm not quite clear here, but are you saying that the big picture is 'we
> > > want threaded navigation and tabs are how we do that?' 
> > > 
> > 
> > I think its more "User use tabs mostly for threaded navigation." I know this 
> > is quite true for myself. 
> 
> How about 'users desire threaded navigation, and currently achieve that
> by using tabs.' I'm trying to separate goal and behavior a little bit
> here- I /think/ that was also what Marco was trying to get at, but I'm
> not sure, and I wanted to clarify.
> 
> Marco, am I getting there?

Let me start from a bit far ;)
I think tab navigation was introduced (at least in galeon but it's likely the same
for mozilla and Opera) without a clear idea of what user tasks they was
going to fill. Simply someone was feeling it cool. That's pretty clear if you look
at the number of preferences they generated.
They are a very generic interface element and they can be used for several tasks, some
of these are simply workarounds for other problems or they are in conflict with the
desktop design (popup blockers, MDI).
I think if we want to develop a better UI for them, without having conflicting preferences
(I'm not worried by prefs maintaince here, just by the fact that they are a mess of conflicts
and bad behaviors), we have to focus on the core. People feel tabs a must for a browser.
If we want to improve them, we have to understand the reasons.
Yeah, this is not how design usually work. We are not designing an interface for a task,
but rather trying to understand what task (or tasks) an already de facto interface is
useful for.
So when I say that I want to see the big picture I'm ultimately aiming at understanding this.
If I try to find where tabs actually make a difference, and not like a workaround, I see two
things:
- They allow to group more than one document inside a window. To create a thread basically.
- They allow to open more than one link in an efficient way
Both are features that improve usability in my opinion, even if I'm not sure if they are the best
way to provide these functionalities.

So what I'm trying to say is:
- Users desires/need threaded navigation
- We have an interface element that allow to do this quite efficiently
- This is interface element can be used also for different things, but they
are apparently only work arounds and models in conflict with the desktop direction

-> Let's try to develop this interface element in a direction that improves usability instead of
trying to satisfy all possible usage possibilities (especially if in conflict with the
global model)

Obviously tabs could be useful for things that I'm missing. But the concept is let's try
to focus on what the users want to get done, not on the interface element itself.

I hope I'm making sense and to have replied to your question,
my brain is sort of borked atm ... should try to sleep more ;)

Marco