Re: [Usability] Tab implementation review

[Martin Soto <soto informatik uni-kl de>]

On Thu, 2009-03-05 at 09:22 +1930, Dokuro wrote:
> tabs, should have the option of being positioned on the top, on the
> bottom or on eider side, this way we would give the user options
> instead of standards :), and the same program would fit on different
> cultures (those who write from below-up or right to left)

Most of the time, users don't want options, they want something they can
use. Most people (myself included) don't care about where tabs are, as
long as they are always at the same place. This is the sort of decision
designers should make, instead of deferring it to users. Concerning i8n,
if there is really a need to position tabs differently depending on the
language or cultural standards, this should be carefully determined for
every particular situation and encoded in the locale so that it happens
automatically and appropriately. I don't really know if this is
necessary, though.

By the way, Gnome used to have undockable menus and toolbars by default.
They were deactivated as developers noticed that almost no-one actually
wanted to move them, and that moving them by accident would often result
in a very confused and annoyed user. A sane decision, as far as I'm
concerned.

Cheers,

M. S.