November 14, 2000

8:02 AM

Starbucks gets a new look.Sigh. More tabs. I really liked their old site and it was much better than their new home-grocer like design. Someone needs to spearhead a grass-roots organization to stop the spread of tabs. Any takers?
posted by Brilliantcrank (20 comments total)

Yeah - I can't think of a more pressing issue right now.
posted by Mocata at 8:27 AM on November 14, 2000

It's an attractive site with nice enough navigation. What's wrong with tabs?
posted by matt324 at 9:49 AM on November 14, 2000

I'm really getting tired of all these site design posts. Can't we get back to the political discussions about the election that really make Metafilter great?
posted by daveadams at 10:53 AM on November 14, 2000

I like it better than their old pastel post-modern pseudo-hip magazine format site (which may be a few designs ago for all I know.)

I *hated* that design.

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 11:01 AM on November 14, 2000

It's not Amazon's fault, they were just the first to implement it. Tabs are really just horizontal navigation with pretty pictures, and when you think about what's available and familiar to most users, you have vertical navigation or horizontal navigation or both.

I agree fail to understand the Tabs=Evil mindset. I've seen tabs implemented horribly, and that instance of tabs is evil, but tabs are just a navigation scheme. They're also one people can understand easily, because they see it a lot.

What's better? That's not a challenge, that's an honest question. What other navigation methods, aside from plain-jane vertical or plain-jain horizontal provide as easy an interface?
posted by cCranium at 12:22 PM on November 14, 2000

closing the tag. Should've previewed.
posted by cCranium at 12:22 PM on November 14, 2000

try again?
posted by cCranium at 12:23 PM on November 14, 2000

I think it's pretty.

But I guess I shouldn't say that, since I'm working on the new SBC site right now.
posted by endquote at 1:10 PM on November 14, 2000

Tabs are ok but I keep hoping that someone will come through with a different technique for navigation.

As for design. The old style was a better match with the Starbucks retail brand. It may have been funky but so is the artwork in the retail stores, brochures, etc.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 1:26 PM on November 14, 2000

As for politics...that's great, we already have hundreds of threads on politics. I don't see what the big deal is about design threads. I hope Mocata and daveadams were just joking.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 1:27 PM on November 14, 2000

I agree fail to understand the Tabs=Evil mindset. I've seen tabs implemented horribly, and that instance of tabs is evil, but tabs are just a navigation scheme. They're also one people can understand easily, because they see it a lot.

Well, now they're a navigation scheme, and now people see them used that way a lot, but this wasn't always true. My original objection to Amazon-style tabs was that it ripped off a useful UI metaphor, twisted it enough to make it confusing, and applied it to a completely different situation.

The original tab-panel metaphor, as I understood it, was a way to maintain the UI connection between a window and an object. Instead of opening up several windows with different views of the same thing, you used the tab panel in a single window to switch between different views or aspects of the window's target.

Amazon-style website tabs have nothing to do with this idea. They're just go-to buttons drawn in the shape of a tab. The place tabs would have made sense is the "Item Information" box on the left side of a product page, which lets you switch between different kinds of reviews and information pages about the product you're examining.

Perhaps other people have other reasons for hating tabs; I don't so much hate the tabs themselves as I resent the way Amazon's designers tore up a good metaphor.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 1:49 PM on November 14, 2000

I hope Mocata and daveadams were just joking

Well, I can't speak for Mocata, but I was joking. I got the idea from a recent thread in which some poster lamented that Metafilter had lately been much more about politics than about site design, which used to be a big topic.

Personally, I find I have nothing to contribute to site design discussions, so I thought I'd make a funny joke.

Now, can we get back to the election or what?
posted by daveadams at 2:13 PM on November 14, 2000

Perhaps other people have other reasons for hating tabs; I don't so much hate the tabs themselves as I resent the way Amazon's designers tore up a good metaphor.

See, that's an argument I can understand. I like it when that happens. :-)

I'm certainly not defending Amazon's use of them and I really can't even play Devil's Advocate and think up a rebuttal better than they've taken the tab and extended (yeah, I just shuddered too :-) it's functionality to a larger "object."

I mean, if you think about it, it's all just views of the same object. That object's just really, really big. :-)

(yeah, I think that's a lame argument too)

But really it's just a different way of presenting the same ol' horizontal menu. What I think more places should do (which is complex, I'm not saying otherwise) is have a standard toolbar type menu, with drop-downs and sub-menus and stuff like that, that act like normal interfaces.

There are sites that do that, but that's pretty difficult to do and still be reasonably cross-browser friendly. And a site that does do that is going to get beat up on by people who don't think that THAT's a good way to navigate.

Can't please all of the people all of the time, and Amazon's done a pretty good job of pleasing most.

(a quick note: I haven't actually visited Amazon since they only sold books, maybe software too, so I don't really know how horrendous the tabs there have gotten, but Starbuck's were only one row deep, which is still in my mind effective)
posted by cCranium at 4:05 PM on November 14, 2000

Mars, I agree with your point. So what is the best metaphor to be used for navigating a web site?
posted by Brilliantcrank at 9:54 PM on November 14, 2000

My belly-button has some really interesting bits of fluff in it today.
posted by Mocata at 3:34 AM on November 15, 2000

I don't really know how horrendous the tabs there have gotten

Actually, they've changed the way the tabs work completely. Instead of being just a horizontal navbar, now they're a heirarchy-representation: Toplevel | sublevel1 | sublevel2. It's kind of silly really, but personally I don't mind tab-looking graphics in place of other stuff. I find Amazon quite easy to navigate around and find what I want, so I have no complaints.
posted by daveadams at 8:27 AM on November 15, 2000

I find Amazon quite easy to navigate around and find what I want, so I have no complaints.

That really just prooves that tabs are a good navigational method.

And no matter how much I do agree with Mars about Amazon having polluted the purpose of tabs, they've also done a damn good job in making a navigation scheme that even people new to Amazon can follow quite well.
posted by cCranium at 9:15 AM on November 15, 2000

cCranium:
I mean, if you think about it, it's all just views of the same object. That object's just really, really big. :-)

Evil. I like it.

gsxl:
Mars, I agree with your point. So what is the best metaphor to be used for navigating a web site?

The downside to commenting on design issues in a place like Metafilter is that people don't waste time calling your bluff. If I could supply an answer as definitive as the question I'd have sold the idea to Jakob Neilsen and retired years ago. Alas, I am a mere dabbler.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 12:03 PM on November 15, 2000

Evil. I like it.

Yeah, Microsoft offered me a job doctoring their spin, but there are some of us evil types who want to be able to wake up in the morning and respect ourselves.
posted by cCranium at 1:37 PM on November 15, 2000