Five reasons why I love tabbed navigation

There are many ways to build navigation on a website - and as most of us would know, depending on the size, scope and target audience of a website, our choices are nearly limitless. However, there is something about tabbed navigation that just does it for me. If done right, tabs create a sense of realism, structure and heavily contribute to the usability of a website.

For those of us that are involved with design for the web on a daily basis, there seem to be many ways of creative navigation for websites that we come across. Over the last nine years or so on my journey designing for the world wide web, what I have noticed is that not only have conventions and ‘acceptable methodology’ changed on a regular basis - but also, the way some (big) site’s are architectured these days leave something to be imagined.

So without further ado; below are five reasons why I love tabbed navigation.

1. Tabs are an easy-to-setup form of navigation that don’t need to weigh down the load time of a website.

Whether it is CSS-based cross-browser accessible code or a simple unordered list, tabs are fairly easy to setup and re-use. The web design community is always coming up with solutions after solutions. A great example of accessible CSS-based tabs by Joshua Kaufman can be found here.

It’s also great to know that apart from the Web 1.0, standard text-based links, CSS-based tabs can now be done without any CSS hacks, with less code and the best part - without imagery; A formula for success.

2. Tabs are no supernatural phenomenon to not-so-techy web users.

Tabs are not just seen on the World Wide Web. They have been used for an incredibly long time. In fact, the reason why web user’s seem to get on like a house on fire with tabbed navigation is because they ‘know’ instinctively what they are supposed to do. Foldering systems, hanging-file folder tabs, as well the uber-cliched Inspector-Cluso style murder-mystery case files all have helped users to understand and appreciate the value of tabbed navigation on the Internet.

3. Tabs are very Web 2.0 and if coded correctly using XHTML lists, are fully W3C compliant forms of navigation

Gone are the days where 59Kb worth of images were needed to create tabs. These days, Web 2 techno’s like Ajax and even old-school style DHTML can spit out tabs that not only work well, but are 1000% W3C compliant. Sick!

4. Tabs are aesthetically pleasing to look at

Some would say, tabs for navigation also greatly aid in the representation of the overall look of a website. In all seriousness, I really dig how well-designed tabs can change the look of a site - completely. I really think there is something to tabs that not only make the user experience that little bit better, but also easier on the eyes than old-school list-based (yet accessible) non-tabs naviation. And last but not least:

5. Tabs are a collective norm these days in terms of navigational structures

Unless you have lived on the moon or under a rock for the past century, if done correctly, anyone is capable of understanding a website’s structure and information architecture from tabbed navigation. It’s the way to go in my opinion and best of all, you know that you are not re-creating the wheel if you use tabs - because there are not only hundreds of examples you can find online - but people still find it hard to believe that there are ways to create tab-based nav that don’t have to look 10 years old, or like Joe Blo’s tab system from across the information superhighway. Stay tuned because some of those ideas will be discussed in an upcoming blog!

So what do you think about this whole ‘tabulacious’ tabs for navigation? Do you currently use tabs on your site? Do you want to? Do you even like tabs? Share your opinions with the rest of the web world.