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As the OP of this topic you handled this discussion with admirable grace.
As I'm sure none of us has seen your company's application and the
project you inherited, we can only banter ideals and accepted best
practices with litle regard to their practical application.
I've found a lot of discrepancy between best practice and common use.
Most of these alternate practices derived from misinterpreted customer
feedback, lack of development time and money, and other factors.
Unless a product (documentation or other) is designed from the
beginning to be modular and object-oriented, there is a great chance
that additions will look more like a hobby construction project than a
high rise.
I would consider the potential problems of multi level hierarchy, and
look for aternate ways to manage this. Maybe refer to each tab as a
specific function group, and avoid referring to the interface at all.
Maybe the model should becoming a living organism, where you are "in"
a (tab name) rather than accessing a function.
I keep imagining how the user manual must look for the computers used
in Minority Report or the flight controls in District 9 as examples of
the problems we're soon to encounter.
That said, you don't have to live your job. If you're stuck with tab
and subtab you could go with it, 35k hits or other.
Cheers,
-Tony
--
Tony Chung: Creative Communications
Cell: +1-604-710-5164
Email: tonyc -at- tonychung -dot- ca * Web: http://tonychung.ca
Skype: tonychung.ca * GTalk/MSN: tonychung -dot- ca -at- gmail -dot- com
Twitter: @techcom * Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tonychung.ca
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