
Ask HN: Most people find browser tabs confusing? - thomasrognon
I made a visual database app and one thing a lot of my users find frustrating is that each table opens up in it&#x27;s own tab. They say things like they don&#x27;t know how to go back to where they opened the table from (and would do things like hit the back button on a freshly opened tab). Some were lost when I would ask them to do things like &quot;close the current tab&quot;. And so on.<p>Browser tabs are so much more versatile than re-implemented tabbing within my app and I figured that since many people use Google Sheets&#x2F;Docs&#x2F;etc which also does this, then a tab per document&#x2F;table&#x2F;whatever would be familiar. Maybe I&#x27;m wrong. What does HN think?
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detaro
Some random points, hard to say in detail:

Browsers tend to not automatically open new tabs though, but only if you
explicitly do something to cause it.

Maybe many people do not use multiple tabs within one site/app, and that
doesn't translate (There's probably some research out there on how people use
browsers in practice)

Your app might look and feel too different from a browser or other tabbed
environment. Does it clearly communicate where a new tab is opened, that you
can't go back on it, ...?

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thomasrognon
_Maybe many people do not use multiple tabs within one site /app_

I'm thinking this may be the crux of the problem. I figured since G Suite did
it, it would be common enough and fine, but maybe not.

 _There 's probably some research out there_

Everything I found was about how some people never close tabs and how to deal
with hundreds of open tabs. This is also part of what led to me assume that
people are comfortable with the concept of tabs.

 _look and feel too different from a browser or other tabbed environment. Does
it clearly communicate where a new tab is opened_

I'm personally biased towards this answer. Maybe it works for G Suite because
people understand "documents" as being self-contained in separate screens and
that does not intuitively carry over to other things. Leveraging browser tabs
is so powerful and useful, so I'm hoping some extra communication effort will
solve it.

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brudgers
_What does HN think?_

Don’t matter. Listen to your users. Try not to argue with them. Good luck.

~~~
thomasrognon
We don't have many users yet (private alpha), so I'm trying to get ahead of
the ball. I'm wondering if this is a broader trend other people have seen or
maybe a symptom of something else. Does it work for Google Sheets/Docs/etc
because people are used to relating "documents" to separate windows and that
is unlikely to carry over to "database tables"? These are hard answers to get
up front from users, but maybe other developers/startups have insight.

At the end of the day, I will absolutely listen to our users (and definitely
not argue with them). Always a great reminder, though, thank you!

~~~
brudgers
The average computer user has trouble saving documents in folders. It doesn’t
matter because it’s not a critical business function.

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zzo38computer
I say don't make each thing open in its own tab, but use a standard link, so
that if a user enters the command to open in a new tab (for example, middle-
click on Firefox) then it will work correctly.

~~~
thomasrognon
In my case, users need to switch back and forth between multiple tables often
(maintaining things like state and scroll position). So if I don't leverage
browser tabs, I'll have to implement tabbing within the app. Of course, users
could still choose to open tables in new tabs also, but that would result in
two levels of tabbing.

~~~
tdeck
Can you create some variation in the tab icons so it's easier to find the one
you were just looking at? I've never seen this done but I do often have the
problem of having, say, 10 Google Docs open in a full tab bar and not knowing
which is which.

~~~
thomasrognon
I really like this idea. I already planned on enabling users to upload
thumbnails images for the "book cover" of a table. I could make each tab's
favicon based on that.

