Tabs, filter pills and navigation pills look alike and do three different things #133

New Issue

2026-09-21T07:18:39Z

cgalo5758 commented

2026-09-21 07:18:39 +00:00

The question

Three controls that look almost the same do different work. The organization page's Active and History tabs are two views of one table. The list scaffold's facet pills filter the rows of one list. The billing pills navigate between separate lists, and are drawn like the filter pills. A reader cannot tell from the control which of the three it is. The rule wanted is when a set of things is views of one table, when it is filters within a list, and when it is navigation between lists, before any of the three is changed.

What depends on the answer

Whether the tabs stay where they are, whether the billing pills become navigation of another kind, and what a new surface reaches for. The tabs read correctly on the record page today; pills are the more versatile control elsewhere, so the rule decides by meaning rather than by taste.

Options known so far

Keep tabs for views of one collection, pills for filters, and make navigation between lists look like navigation.
One control for all three, distinguished by position and label.

To research with it: what published systems do below a narrow breakpoint, where a select replaces the row of tabs, and how they handle a set too long for one row with an overflow menu.

Decided when

The design system names the three cases and the control each one uses, and the surfaces that mix them are corrected.

Migrated from status/issues.md at b7a0e15

## The question Three controls that look almost the same do different work. The organization page's Active and History tabs are two views of one table. The list scaffold's facet pills filter the rows of one list. The billing pills navigate between separate lists, and are drawn like the filter pills. A reader cannot tell from the control which of the three it is. The rule wanted is when a set of things is views of one table, when it is filters within a list, and when it is navigation between lists, before any of the three is changed. ## What depends on the answer Whether the tabs stay where they are, whether the billing pills become navigation of another kind, and what a new surface reaches for. The tabs read correctly on the record page today; pills are the more versatile control elsewhere, so the rule decides by meaning rather than by taste. ## Options known so far - Keep tabs for views of one collection, pills for filters, and make navigation between lists look like navigation. - One control for all three, distinguished by position and label. To research with it: what published systems do below a narrow breakpoint, where a select replaces the row of tabs, and how they handle a set too long for one row with an overflow menu. ## Decided when The design system names the three cases and the control each one uses, and the surfaces that mix them are corrected. Migrated from status/issues.md at b7a0e15

cgalo5758 added the

kind

design

area/operator-ui labels 2026-09-21 07:18:39 +00:00

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