Designing for tabbed browsing - the "Tab Framework"
One thing I hate about Bloglines is that I can't open the sites into new tabs directly - because each link is basically a javascript and not a URL per-se. In the same breath, I also like the fact that individual articles can be opened in independent tabs.
With tabbed browsing becoming such an important part of life, how should applications be developed so as to give best experience to user?
- Use REST principle. Typically each tab should stand for independent object which is getting inspected by the user - in case the site is information oriented (such as amazon, bloglines etc.)
- Alternately, if the site is workflow oriented (which most enterprise sites do), the tabs would probably stand for an initiation of workflow. And perhaps a small icon representing the "Data is now available" condition so as to get our attention when a delay-causing condition happens.
- Similarly collaborative sites could incorporate some mechanisms: Has user become alive again? Is there a new discussion?
Second big problem is: How do we manage so many tags? For a moment, consider tags to be bookmarks. Each tag vies for our attention. While in most cases tags are temporary "handles" for helping us react to large amount of information, the actual attention span required might be quite large.
For example, workflows might involve a sign-off from co-worker, and all this while, you might want to keep the tab open (rather than remember to open the application again, or get notified by email.)
Some contexts might be really long-term: I might want to track a discussion, or wait to see if someone is selling that iPod at pricepoint of interest to me.
So as we don't have a decent notification system in place, I think tabs should get an important status.
Or perhaps merge PIM systems and tabs. Let one flow into another. And did I say that Email clients will greatly be helped by tabbing too?! (Incidently there is a slashdot discussion: Firefox as Platform. )
-Vinod
