[thelist] Site check please....

Ian Anderson ian at zstudio.co.uk
Thu Apr 13 18:46:15 CDT 2006


Jay Blanchard wrote:

> :) I like them hanging down and will probably do something (using the
> sliding door CSS) to pretty them up. I do think that it shakes up things
> a bit. If this is an 'abuse' of UI convention, so be it. And not to
> start a holy war, but which UI convention? Is there really a UI
> convention? As a software guy with over 20 years under his belt I have
> read the Zeldman's (and others et. al.) of the world...and they can't
> even agree on convention. 

Well, I uphold your right to do it the way you want, of course.

Nitpicking perhaps, but the academic point here is that conventions are 
- more or less by definition - not the subject of debate, agreement or 
declaration, but simply are the established way of doing something. 
Given that yardstick, I think yes, there is a UI convention for tabs 
that appear in the way I described.

It is, of course, your prerogative to follow or flout those conventions, 
and of course to question whether the convention is flawed. Personally, 
I think it's a damn useful one. In UI terms, using a widget for 
something other than its normal use is a mistake. In UI terms, making a 
widget look other than its normal appearance is a mistake.

But this is academic, and a relatively minor niggle.

Cheers!

Ian

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