Ribbon

In computer interface design, a ribbon is a graphical control element in the form of set toolbars placed on several tabs. Typically, the structure of a ribbon includes large, tabbed toolbars, filled with graphical buttons and other graphical control elements grouped by functionality. Such ribbons use tabs to expose different sets of controls, eliminating the need for numerous parallel toolbars. Contextual tabs are tabs that appear only when the user needs them – for instance, in a word processor, an image-related tab may appear when the user selects an image in a document, allowing the user to interact with that image.

Usage of the term "ribbon" dates back to the 1980s and was originally used as a synonym for a plain toolbar. In 2007, Microsoft used the term to refer to its own implementation of tabbed toolbars for Microsoft Office 2007, which Microsoft termed "The Fluent UI". Although Microsoft popularized the term with a new meaning, similar tabbed layouts of controls had existed in previous software from other vendors, including Adobe Dreamweaver and 3D Studio Max.