Okay, so in developing the last few websites I’ve been playing with Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1, and after a few weeks of using it (not as my primary browser… scoff), I think I can say: what the hell, Microsoft? What’s wrong with having a main menu? Eh? I can understand Microsoft wanting to make the address bar more prominent–it is the way most people input a website address–but that doesn’t have to come at the expense of user experience. And I think I’ve figured out what the problem is…
Microsoft has forgotten that Apple’s menus are up top. Simple as that. IE7 is a direct ripoff of Safari’s visual layout, and it’s not terribly surprising: it’s a good layout. Back, Forward, Address, Go, and Search, all right underneath the window title. Punchy, brief, and provides the user’s most comment UI elements all in one quick package. Not more than 75 pixels tall, either, leaving plenty of room for content display.
So Microsoft is biting Apple’s style; in the industry, that’s called “best practices,” and while it might merit a blog post, it certainly wouldn’t merit further attention. What turns it into a real losing proposition for users is the fact that the environment for IE7 and Safari are radically different. To wit: Safari’s got the menus up top, and IE7’s got the menus… uh… right… over… um… there. Underneath the tabs, just like… um… well, just like nothing else in the world.
In a nutshell, here is why this is a horrible UI paradigm: the File menu, which is inside the tab for a particular website, has an item labeled Exit. Guess what it does.
Fundamental to the working of modern operating systems is the idea of scope; applications which are functionally separate are displayed as visually separate–in different windows, for example. Within each window, other scopes of action are suggested visually: typing within one field doesn’t automatically spill over into another. Tabs denote a scope of action, and widgets within a tab are usually interpreted as applying specifically to that scope alone. Having widgets in a tab which affect elements outside of the tab is a mistake. The fact that it is a common mistake does not magically transform it from being a A-class blunder. Internet Explorer 7 shows us that Microsoft has forgotten the mistakes of Word 6.0.
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