Limitations of the Tab Metaphor

The idea here is to move out of the tab-based UI in favor of a vertical list of choices and a display block. Here are the problems with tabs:

• Tabs show a horizontal list of choices. This list will always be shorter than a vertical list when the vertical scroll is prioritized over the horizontal scroll.
• More than four horizontal choices feel harder to read than more than four vertical choices. I’m sure there is use-ability research supporting this opinion. Somebody get Mr. Nielson online.
• AJaX makes building a vertical list of choices and a display block easier to maintain than a client-side DHTML-only design.So now we have the way to incorporate our new, RESTful, object-oriented PHP design concepts into site redesigns.

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