Yes, “Nearby Airports” does hint that it is related, but it doesn’t automatically suggest to me that every *other* tab is so related. I realize that it wouldn’t take much experience to realize that they are in fact related, but you are supposing that visitors are mostly unfamiliar with the site (have you been able to work out how many repeat vs new visitors you have been getting?)

Also, the inactive tabs fade into the background enough that I notice it takes me some noticeable effort to decipher them (I suppose it would be a bit easier on an actual page, which would be larger than this screen shot.

Perhaps these factors play a part.

Ed: Thanks for the nice comment about the site! To date, I haven’t done any user testing, because OurAirports has just been a hobby site for when my consulting work is slow (or when I want to procrastinate). I’m thinking of trying to grow it into something a bit bigger, though — if not a business, perhaps a sideline — so I’ve been investing a bit more time recently. As a non-designer (I’m a development/data guy), it’s been a challenge for me — it’s easy enough to learn the technical bits, like fluid CSS layouts, but hard to get my head into usability mode.

Paul: What you describe is fairly close to what is currently in place (least-used tabs are on the right, and each tab covers a different dimension of airport information), but it doesn’t seem to be serving well: I’ve ended up designing a site organized around my developer’s data-oriented perspective, rather than a user’s task-oriented perspective. People don’t visit sites looking for dimensions or other information-organization systems; they visit to accomplish tasks, as Hoekman hammers home in “Designing the Moment” (something I wish I’d read two years earlier).

Nathaniel: I don’t know what the best solution is for web sites in general, but for OurAirports, I’m planning to add a small box beside the map presenting the most probable tasks that a user would like to accomplish on each page, clearly described, with a link to a “More” popup (or something similar) giving the whole list. For an airport, wanting to see arrivals or departures is much more likely than wanting to see more technical information, and putting that all at the same level in tabs makes it harder for people to find the most important stuff.

* * *

In general, I’m coming to think that tabs are probably useful for web apps that are function like desktop apps, where people spend hours working every week (think Google apps or webmail) — people have time to learn those apps well, and will probably find the consistency of the same tabs on every page to be a benefit. For sites like mine, though, where most visitors stay only a few minutes, I think the information overload and confusion of a tabbed interface might outweigh any benefit. *I* find the tabs useful, and I’m sure a few of my power users do as well, but I wondering if that’s true of the majority of my visitors.

1. You use tabs and sidebar navigation as well here on your website. Comments?
2. I’m not understanding what your proposed solution is to tabbed navigation?

Check out http://www.amazon.com for how they’ve answered this question. It’s actually quite innovative.

//Paul K. Sholar (Twitter @bkwdgreencomet)