I said that the design is controversial. The way MacRumors reports and the title chosen implies that most users do not like the new design, something that we don't know. Gruber does not represent all users, neither MacRumors!
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Safari 15 Users Say New Tab Design is Counterintuitive
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This thing started to happen when they removed fake wheels for date changes etc. to this day the new format still sucks compared to the old wheel.
The new design is not an improvement for me, but it isn't altogether bad for me. Compact layout works nice if you only have a small number of tabs opened. At 10 tabs however, Compact layout doesn't work well for me.
The address bar at the bottom in iOS 15 doesn't work for me. Well, it does work, except that several sites don't work well for some reason.
The address bar at the bottom in iOS 15 doesn't work for me. Well, it does work, except that several sites don't work well for some reason.
I don't think this can be written off as just change aversion. The lack of obviousness of which tab is currently selected is a real problem.
I'm a primarily UI-focused engineer with heavy involvement in UX, and this immediately struck me as problematic. You should not have to look at the tabs and think "Now which one of these colors/icons means 'currently selected'?" but with this UI design, if you have 2 tabs open, that is exactly what happens. With 3 or more you can kind of tell by which one is different than the others, but you still have to think about it for a split second. You shouldn't have to at all.
Additionally, consistency is a basic hallmark of good UI/UX, and by having the tabs and chroming "pick up" the colors of the page, it makes this process even less obvious. For example, let's say you get into the mindset of "the dark tab is the selected one". Is that always true? No, it is not. If you go to a dark page (try theverge.com for example) this rule is *reversed*. So that means you have to not only take a second to think it over, but evaluate whether it's true in the current color scheme!
This is a rookie UX mistake, and I am a big Apple fan and enthusiastic developer, but I am shocked that they did this. This is really beneath their usual UX competency. Honestly.
But hey, let's not be theoretical. Let's look at real examples! Here, I've opened just two sites: news.google.com and theverge.com, each in their own tab. The *only* thing I'm going to do differently in these two screenshots is change tabs. Nothing else.
Okay, at a glance...what's selected? The dark one, right? So now let's change tabs:
Quick, which one's selected?
Do you see the problem?
I still turn it off immediately, as it feels counterintuitive and unnatural to me on a non-touch system
Safari’s interface always irked me even before this change. A central tenant of good UI design is to keep interface elements in predictable locations. Safari follow’s Apple’s quest to have everything centered - the favorites bar is centered, and tabs are centered and proportionate to the window, constantly changing size depending on how many you have open. Compact view exacerbates this because tabs now slide around and change location depending on which one is open. It’s bad UI design and goes against Apple’s own prior human interface guidelines. Compare that to the standard most other browsers use - tabs consistently starting on the left and staying the same size until the edge of the window is reached. Not to say those UIs are perfect, but they’re more predictable than Safari’s ever been.
Adguard for Safari
Yes, separate should give us the same tabs that are used systemwide.
Those that want to use applications written with native frameworks.
We lost horizontal space, we lost tab scrolling that worked good, we lost intuitive tab dragging, we lost refresh button that had a menu for reloading without adblock, we lost reading list/bookmarks button and all of that was for few points of vertical space?. They started with Safari 13's scroll nerfing and annoying tab previews that you can't turn off and they just can't stop ****ing it up.
I work in my browser all day with multiple tabs in continuous use, and this has been so disruptive to my workflow that I'm now trialling Microsoft Edge.
I haven't even looked at any other browser for more than a decade, but working with Edge has been such a relief over the past week or so. I'm now very likely to stick with it permanently.
I haven't even looked at any other browser for more than a decade, but working with Edge has been such a relief over the past week or so. I'm now very likely to stick with it permanently.
I noticed that in 15 the alarm app now uses wheels for time. I'm pretty sure you had to type into the times before, which was awkward.
The verge is selected, it is the lighter colour. But regardless, it is cmd+2. You are also using it in the worst way where you gain nothing for the change, if you switch to compact tabs the UI makes sense. You also have useless buttons on display. Without loosing the space earned from switching to compact tabs, how do you propose to improve the UX? It is pretty clear to me which site is active, or I'll muscle memory with the cmd and num pad.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of the compact tab at first, but when they introduced this confusing layout, I truly hated it and was so glad when they added to option to switch back to the compact tab, which I’ve stuck to since then. Normally when Apple makes an (initially) unpopular change, I get why the change was made. Not this time. I simply struggle to see its purpose, and it runs against the mental model of users.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of the compact tab at first, but when they introduced this confusing layout, I truly hated it and was so glad when they added to option to switch back to the compact tab, which I’ve stuck to since then. Normally when Apple makes an (initially) unpopular change, I get why the change was made. Not this time. I simply struggle to see its purpose, and it runs against the mental model of users.
Depends how you define popular. Facebook's billion users makes it hard to compare when to your own web apps and websites with tens of millions of users
Apple has been diminishing the OS for years now. It seems they are determined to go backwards, removing many, many useful features and imposing a new UI that is just less and less. It seems a deliberate hubris. They have lost all talent for innovation, all...and have replaced it with this endless childish somewhat pathetic "tinkering" that diminishes the OS experience each time they do it. There is something wrong with this way of thinking.
Safari 4 Beta?
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I don't agree with all of your post, but I would love to see the brushed metal look come back and aqua. Everything being flat is a wee bit dull.
Tbh I'd consider this lightyears better than what the latest Safari looks like…
The Verge is selected in the *second* one and is the lighter color, but in the first one, Google News is selected and it is the *darker* color...which is my whole point.
I don't use hotkeys to navigate tabs, and that should not be a requirement for a UI to make sense.
I don't want to use the compact tabs view because I want more space to drag the window around. Plus I shouldn't have to change a setting to make a UI usable. The default should be exactly as good as any other setting.
It's fine that you like it better, but UX isn't about one person. It's about people in general, and I think most users will find this a less intuitive interface. I think Apple got this wrong, and that is both my personal and professional opinion.
To answer your question about how I'd fix it: I would make there be a visual connection between the currently-selected tab and the content on the page. Let's look at how Chrome handles the same two tabs:
You're not *really* going to tell me that's less clear about which one is selected? If so, I think you're being disingenuous.
The default was compact tabs. People complained and the default changed from the lovely compact tabs to that horrendous worst of both worlds you pictured. Apple sticking to their guns on the compact tabs would have been a lot better than adding a last minute extra that became the default.