I have two panels - one contains current information for a subject, the other contains historic trend information for the subject in a graph.
I can display them on the same page - one underneath the other. Or I can put them in separate tabs so that only one is displayed at a time.
What I'd like to know is - does putting both onscreen at the same time make it more difficult for the user to grok that in one area we are talking about latest info but in the other we are talking about historic info?