Tabs Part 2
2nd edition — by Patrick McNeil — Jun. 11, 2007
The Design Element
Tabs are fundamental to web design, and most large sites incorporate them. Even if they don't look exactly like tabs, they have the same function. Tabs represent a collection of pages hidden below. The pattern of making them looks like tabs obviously stems from the idea of a file cabinet organized by folders. Considering this it is obvious to see why many of these sites have choosen to use tabs in their design. It simply helps users understand that they are getting into an area of data, not nesecarily a specific page yet, but a pool of data they want to be in. I know I for one have lost track of this at times and considered them more of a decorative element then a functional one. Keep the user in mind when putting this to use and you will find that you make a more usable site that happens to look great as well.
Links
Many of these links offer simple less stylized tabs.
These links get you past the technical hurdles and let you move onto the
design of the tabs.
Exploding
Boy CSS tab menus (great free designs)
More Exploding Boy CSS tabs
CSS mini tabs at SimpleBits
Tab rollovers at SimpleBits
CSS Based tab menu tutorial
Simple CSS Tabs
Tabtastic (CSS/JS based tabs)
Rollover Tabs Tutorial
