45707 - Consistently use "tab" for Sidebar items throughout product

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect, P3)

Description

[johng]

The Search menu refers to the Search tab in My Sidebar as a "panel".  Should be
changed to "tab" to be consistent with all other UI and materials.

The problem with "panel" is that we tested that term and it was universally
thrown out by every focus group as being confusing, non-descriptive or just
plain yuk.

Since the rest of the UI and all documentation, netscape.com web pages,
evangelism programs, press releases and the "Add tab to Netscape 6" button on
other websites all use the term "tab", let's make life easy and be consistent
and change this menu item to "tab".

Admittedly, "tab" is a less descriptive term in skins like classic that do not
use a tab like interface.  But I think that whatever skin we use by default
should use or be changed to use a tab design - we did this originally because
usability testing showed that users were confused by the "bar" visual but
understood the tab design (similar to what they see at amazon at other sites).

So, bottom-line.  Let's change this one menu item to use the term "tab" so we
can be consistent and clear and support other programs.

Comment 1

[johng]

nsbeta3 nominee

Comment 2

[Blake Ross]

Thanks for cc'ing me, John.

If we were to switch back to "tab", we would change it throughout the app; 
updating summary to reflect that.  

There's a big dilemma here.  We used to use "tab", but then Ben made a series 
of random checkins to change to "panel" on the grounds that the items in the 
sidebars of some skins might not resemble tabs at all.  I can see and 
understand this argument, but I can also understand the issue that focus groups 
haven't responded kindly to the word "panel" (I don't like it all that much 
myself).  So, we can other revert back to "tab" understanding that it might be 
an incorrect designation in some skins, or we can struggle to think of a better 
alternative.

Reassigning to me so I can do something about this when the decision finally 
comes down from above.

Comment 3

[johng]

Remember that this is not just a client code thing - it effect lots of docs as
well as third party web sites.  Therefore changing away from "tab" is painful.

That said, the one other name I've heard that sounds reasonable is "sidebar".
It might get confusing when you talk about your 5 sidebars in "My Sidebar" or
"add a sidebar to My Sidebar" but perhaps that language could be avoided and we
would be OK.  The advantage is that the user only has to learn one term - namely
"sidebar".

The pain of a change makes me reluctant to anything but "tab", but it is worth
considering.  But again no to "panel" because of the strong data against it.

Comment 4

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Noooo ... `tab' (pharmaceutical connotations notwithstanding) makes much more 
sense than having `sidebars' in a `sidebar'.

If some skins make panels look like something other than tabs, it's almost 
certain they'll be less obvious than a tab appearance anyway; and we shouldn't be 
trying to cater for their foolhardiness by making all our terminology
ultra-generic.

Comment 5

[Brendan Donohoe]

I recommend 'tab' as well.

Comment 6

[Blake Ross]

I agree.  "tab" is the way to go.

Comment 7

[Blake Ross]

OK, I fixed the menu item to say tab, and two other instances in the pref 
window.  I'm sure there's other cases where 'panel' is used, so if you happen 
to find one, feel free to reopen this.

Comment 8

[german]

Thanks Blake!

Comment 9

[Zach Lipton [:zach]]

Chaning the qa contact on these bugs to me. MPT will be moving to the 
owner of this component shortly. I would like to thank him for all his hard 
work as he moves roles in mozilla.org...Yada, Yada, Yada...