Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Safari 15 Users Say New Tab Design is Counterintuitive

usagora said:
I don't use Safari, but it's not the only app that can be confusing with tabs. For example, Visual Studio Code. To me, the "main.css" tab looks like it's in the foreground (and therefore active), but it's actually the inactive tab.

View attachment 1856681

Having said that, it's not the end of the world (whether VSC or Safari 15) like some people are acting. You just have to learn the quirks of specific apps.
Click to expand...
You think that's bad, have a look at nova in dark mode:

1633393066694.png
 
Haven’t noticed the tab shading, although that sounds quite annoying.

I’m more interested in how to get the default behavior back for when I open safari, to have my bookmarks tab open on the side as well, then have it automatically close when I launch a site. Now it’s off by default and stays on until I manually turn it off. That’s annoying…
 
I'm using the new compact tabs option in Monterey public beta. It is nice that the top of the window as it is using less space and I do not keep open 10's of tabs all the time so it fits me well and adds a little bit of extra viewing space.
 
aevan said:
No, they just like Apple products and talk about them. Not like “I hate everything new” cynics. It’s ok to like things. People liking things you don’t doesn’t make them sycophants. Shocking.
Click to expand...

I respectfully disagree. Gruber and Ritchie would end up, at least, mid-forehead deep if Apple ever came to a sudden stop. Then there's iJustine, proof that home lobotomy kits are a bad idea.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nvmls
EugW said:
I find the Safari tabs design change quite confusing. I'm more used to it now, but I am still not impressed with it. It's not intuitive.
Click to expand...

I can’t even see what the heсk is going on with tabs!

I mean, I don’t care all that much maybe, but what in the heck is it that turns my top area of web pages including all the tabs -all one color? Is that actually happening? Is it really doing this for a good reason? Beta testers let that pass?
 
Last edited:
Hey, just giving my 2 cents here. I personally hated the new default Safari’s tab view. So ugly, colors made no sense.

However, I turned on “compact tab layout” in safari preferences and it made a world of difference. I don’t know why this compact tab view isn’t the default. It saves you space with tabs becoming on the side of each tab (I would often drag tabs into their own separate windows to maximize content shown. important for websites and the web version of zoom)

More people should try the compact tab view. it’s pretty slick imo.

(although my two complaints are: increase the difference between private and non-private safari windows. I keep getting lost if i’m in private mode or not. and also i’m getting a bug where I have two tabs, and i want to drag one out to its own window, it just crashes Safari completely)
 
  • Like
Reactions: pizzzle
BuddyTronic said:
I can’t even see what the heсk is going on with tabs!

I mean, I don’t care all that much maybe, but what in the heck is it that turns my top are of web pages including all the tabs one color? Is that actually happening? Is it really doing this for a good reason? Beta testers let that pass?
Click to expand...

This is working as intended, and I think it looks really cool! Doesn't seem to work with all websites, but those that do look great with their colour-coordinated Safari.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BuddyTronic
Chalk this up to old man syndrome of Gruber not being able to handle change. Of all the FUNCTIONAL issues with Apple software lately, the damn shading of safari tabs are at the bottom of the list. Focusing attention on something like this in turn takes attention away from all the other issues.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mr Todhunter, trip1ex and mdriftmeyer
I've had a problem with tabs becoming invisible, but still taking up space in the tab bar, and not being usable until I close the other tabs. I try clicking on them, but nothing happens until I close the others that I can see.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nvmls
Bawstun said:
Just yet one more example of the poor designers Apple employs lately. It’s such a small thing but it speaks to a larger problem. Their user interface has sucked on many design angles for years. Just take a look at Apple Music. Nothing is as intuitive as it used to be…
Click to expand...
Quality control would never be this bad if Steve Jobs were still alive.
 
jonnyb098 said:
Chalk this up to old man syndrome of Gruber not being able to handle change. Of all the FUNCTIONAL issues with Apple software lately, the damn shading of safari tabs are at the bottom of the list. Focusing attention on something like this in turn takes attention away from all the other issues.
Click to expand...

This isn't about "shading of the tabs". It's about essentially being unable to tell which tab is selected, which is a *major* and *serious* UX issue. It's every bit as "functional" as whatever you're thinking of, and it probably impacts more people.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ankaa and Mr Todhunter
ruka.snow said:
You have 12(24) pixels above and below each tab, to me it is waisted space as 2(4) pixels would be more than sufficient and reduce the vertical space eaten, but clearly this is big enough for a touch input just now so you have this big area to drag about.
Click to expand...
I can't tell if you're being serious or trolling. Surely you're not seriously suggesting that 12 pixels of thickness is a "big area to drag about"? If you are being serious, then I must respectfully and strongly disagree. Decades of UI research indicate that narrow areas like that require extra gesture time from a user to move towards and click on.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ankaa, nvmls and Mr Todhunter
What I dislike the most is that when you have many tabs open, instead of shrinking all of them to fit the width of the page, they stop showing the tabs at either end, so that they are not available to click on unless you swipe to see the other end. The tabs also look genrally terrible on my 12.9" iPad Pro.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jon9091
I swear they intentionally made the tabbed view worse to force some frustrated users to try the compact view. I am one of those victims.

I still don’t like the compact view, but it’s at least just clumsy and cluttered instead of being fundamentally flawed.

Also off topic but I agree that ‘natural’ scrolling is awful. I’m sure if your Mac laptop is the only device you ever use - you eventually adapt, but anyone who uses also uses PCs with scroll wheels every day has to have a consistent input experience. It’s annoying enough to me that the acceleration profiles for the mouse pointer is different on macOS and Windows.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Doc69, Ankaa and amartinez1660
DesertDrummer said:
This isn't about "shading of the tabs". It's about essentially being unable to tell which tab is selected, which is a *major* and *serious* UX issue. It's every bit as "functional" as whatever you're thinking of, and it probably impacts more people.
Click to expand...
Ummm yea it is…..read the article and the complaints on Reddit….
 
doolar said:
Thank you! I thought it was just me being too old to adapt to changes. ;) Now I know why I seem a bit confused around my tabs, something that never happened before in Safari.
Click to expand...
Anchoring on your message but many others have alluded to the same concern about being too square for changes…

There’s a book, “The Design of everyday Things” where one of the key takeaways is that when an user has a difficulty using anything (say, basic opening of a door or a drawer) concluding that it was “user error” or “too old for novelty” or similar is a scapegoat, laziness, bad execution and downright bad design… most of “user error” is mostly just plain bad design that failed to inform its intent.

Context is important, user base is important, if the tabs can’t let the user clearly know if it is active or inactive inside the context of a macOS user interface at large, then that tab is failing majorly at delivering that info.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: nvmls, Canubis, Mr Todhunter and 2 others
Happily still on iOS 14.
Apple knows that there’s plenty of alternate browsers that users can use now so let’s make safari as bad as them. :rolleyes:
 
  • Like
Reactions: jon9091
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back