Module Tabs Edit
Problem summary
The user needs to browse through a series of tabs without refreshing the page
Example
Usage
- Use when there is not enough space on the website to show all of the content inside all tabs – or if such a listing is irrelevant.
- Use when there are more than 2 sections
- Use when there less than 8-10 sections depending on the length of each section name.
- Use when section names are relatively short
- Use when the content of each tab can be viewed separate from each other, and not in context of each other.
- Use when the content for each tab has similar structure
- Use when you need to show what tab is currently being viewed
- Do not use when the content inside each pane would function just as well in its own separate page.
Solution
- Present the content of one tab inside a box (content area)
- Place a horizontal bar on top of the content area with links representing tabs
- Refrain from having more than one line of links in the top horizontal tab bar
- Use color coding or other visual support to indicate what tab is currently being viewed
- Present the content of each tab in the same content area
- Only one content area should be visible at a time
- Maintain the same structure of the top horizontal tab bar after a new tab has been clicked
- Only the content area of the tabs and the horizontal tab bar should be changed when a user clicks a new tab
- If possible, the page is not refreshed when a tab is clicked.
- A new page is not loaded when a tab is clicked
Rationale
- Navigation tabs lends itself from the physical metaphor of a folderes in a file-cabinet and is thus familiar to the user.
- Module Tabs provide an easy way to show large amounts of similar structured data parted by categories
- Tabs place the content area of the tabs into a context as the selected tab has been highlighted.
More example images of the 'Module Tabs' pattern
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From canon.com.
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From cbs.com.
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From intuit.com.
This document is in version 2 and was last updated on Feb 8, 2009 by suliandio7. The original author of the design pattern was Anders. Edit this pattern.
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Module Tabs has 1 comment
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about 1 month ago
Rainer
15 Apr 2009
What if I have to or want to show more sections in my module than the module’s width? Does anyone know a good pattern for this?
I only know some solution for this but am not sure which is really good:
- showing several rows of tabs… which looks really ugly
- showing arrows to move the tabs (like for the spreadsheets in Excel or for the browser tabs in Firefox)
- showing only as many tabs as fit in the row and offer further tabs in something like a dropdown menuAny other ideas, recommendations or tips for good examples?