[HN Gopher] Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess
___________________________________________________________________
Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess
Author : freediver
Score : 378 points
Date : 2021-06-19 12:15 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (morrick.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (morrick.me)
| xvector wrote:
| Strongly disagree. Vertical space is not negligible. We already
| have way too many things taking up vertical space:
|
| - menu bar
|
| - tab bar
|
| - URL bar
|
| - bookmarks bar
|
| - scrolling site headers
|
| - dock
|
| Eliminating, combining, or hiding just some of these by default
| is a huge win for space savings. It's why people have been asking
| for a combined tab/URL bar for years.
|
| The blended chrome does indeed make websites feel like they take
| more of your screen.
|
| Overall this change is seriously tempting me to move from Firefox
| to Safari.
| umutisik wrote:
| What I would like: Infinite tabs, they don't get too small in the
| tab bar, newer ones to the right, older ones can be accessed by
| scrolling left. Older than last 15 don't take up memory. Tabs get
| saved into disk/cloud and reappear when you restart the browser
| like on iOS. Basically so you can put off dealing with your open
| tabs indefinitely.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Safari already does this. Tabs begin by showing the page title
| and optionally the site favicon. Once you've got a bunch open
| they shrink down to just the favicon. After that point the tab
| bar scrolls horizontally. You can scroll it with two finger
| swipes on a trackpad or Shift + Scroll on a mouse. You can see
| all tab contents by hitting the tab view button (I don't know a
| better name).
|
| Open tabs are synced between devices via iCloud. In the tab
| icon view you can see tabs open on other devices listed. You
| can click to open one or [?] + Click to open them in new
| background tabs.
| thysultan wrote:
| I much prefer less "chrome" so i like the new safari re-design,
| if it was me i would have just reduced it to just having a
| keyboard shortcut(cmd + f) that pulls up a spotlight like search
| that has the url and a list of the tabs you can arrow down on.
| gatkinso wrote:
| Maybe I missed it but has this person actually tried the new
| Safari?
| pcr910303 wrote:
| I believe this new design is the best Safari design 'in the
| constraints of the new Big Sur design language'. I'm liking it
| mostly because the Big Sur's new toolbar is too thick.
|
| With the menubar, toolbar, and the tabbar, 106px of my total
| 800px height display gets to display non-content information,
| much of which is clutter when I'm trying to focus on the webpage.
| It's a whopping 13.3%! Most of this comes from the thick toolbar
| that Big Sur has started.
|
| But since Apple won't be changing that thick toolbar (as we all
| know), the 30px vertical height (which translates to 3.6%) that I
| get by hiding the toolbar is precious. So I appreciate the new
| Safari 15 design. Really, the only problem I'm finding is the
| refresh button, which I'm like 99% sure will come back with all
| of this fuzz, and the other functionality in that (...) button
| needed multiple mouse clicks in Safari 14 anyway. Like...
| disabling the ad blocker required a long-click on the refresh
| button, it's now more discoverable.
|
| Shifting address bars... I can see how that might make people
| freak out; Personally I've had zero problems, so YMMV.
|
| About tab management - I can't disagree more than the article.
| Creating group of tabs is very much useful, it's much more
| helpful than having a group of windows each with different topics
| and prevents idle windows eating memory and CPU when only one
| window gets used for a long time.
|
| I have five tab groups, one about my school, two on my personal
| hobbies, one on generic development-related information
| (including HN) and one on my work, each with 10~20 tabs. I'm
| guessing the writer doesn't use tabs pervasively - that's fine.
| But I would like to point out that it is _not_ rarely efficient
| nor overall unconvincing. Thanks Apple for that tab group
| feature, I 'm seriously getting a ton of mileage over it.
| [deleted]
| noahtallen wrote:
| Imo, the new address bar is better because it attached to the
| current tab. This is how it already works, but the design never
| reflected that. Previously, the address bar was a global UI
| element which doesn't modify the global state. I think this
| could easily be clearer for new users. (And possibly clearer
| for technologically challenged existing users.) To me, the big
| complaints are just reacting to it being different. I don't
| think that's fair.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I mean Safari specifically chose to use a thicker toolbar on
| Big Sur. If they cared about vertical space, why didn't the
| pick the thinner option?
| xutopia wrote:
| Aren't monitor size changing things though? Like I don't care
| what size my task bar is if my screen is so big it makes up for
| it.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Laptops exist.
| axismundi wrote:
| Hey browser vendors, GIVE US BACK THE CONTROL!
|
| I swear it was possible in the past to drag and drop all UI
| elements, including the tab bar, by right-clicking the chrome and
| dropping into edit mode, do you remember?
| ismayilzadan wrote:
| New Safari design really reminds me Internet Explorer 9 and 10.
| It also had tabs right to the address bar. Back then I was amazed
| with the idea, but looking at window icons taking massive
| horizontal space I became disappointed. Still tried to use it
| though, but it quickly became clear that there just not enough
| horizontal space with 720p monitor to fit more than 2 tabs while
| still understand what is open.
| flying_sheep wrote:
| I have switched back to Windows because macOS is like a second-
| class citizen in Apple :-/ I am programmer with many Bash scripts
| in macOS. But the switch is quite smooth actually (thanks to WSL
| 2).
|
| With the similar price of M1 iMac, I can buy a Windows with a
| much better GPU (for gaming, deep learning, mining, or whatever)
| and a 140+Hz monitor. With a high refresh rate monitor the UI is
| so silk smooth. Expect iOS level smoothness when scrolling web
| pages.
|
| However there is something I still want a solution. Say the
| continuation of the current website (between Edge and iPhone).
| Password synchronization and Notes (the official iCloud web Notes
| is almost useless).
| 1_player wrote:
| The updated Safari has had a baffling UI update. It does not make
| any sense at all, on THE most important application that's
| shipped with the operating system.
|
| It's those kind of UI ideas that look great on a mockup, but do
| not work in reality with real data and real users, those that
| open 35 tabs--behaviour encouraged by macOS windowing system by
| the way--and now all of those are crammed into a ludicrously
| small space that's constantly moving around.
|
| I don't know what Apple were thinking there. Let's not call it
| UX, this is designers changing for change's sake at the expense
| of user experience. I'm struggling to see how is it justifiable
| in any way.
| badkitty99 wrote:
| It's hard to judge something that's constantly changing, to
| make a final decision anyway. They exploit our good nature and
| milk the benefit of the doubt with military precision, leaving
| us confused, powerless and hooked on the update system of their
| products and services.
| Someone wrote:
| "but do not work in reality with real data and real users,
| those that open 35 tabs"
|
| That is close to stating that those that open fewer than 35
| tabs aren't real users and, further between the lines, that
| those people can be ignored.
|
| However I think, but don't have data to confirm it, that they
| should be catered for and that "those that open 35 tabs" are a
| vocal minority.
| 1_player wrote:
| What? I'm saying there's a ton of people opening a lot of
| tabs, nowhere in my comment I was disparaging towards them.
| Please don't make assumptions. I'm just saying their use case
| has been ruined by this update, a use case that is seldom
| represented in neat and oversimplified designer mockups.
| xvector wrote:
| their use case has not been 'ruined', you can use tab
| groups
| elliekelly wrote:
| > However I think, but don't have data to confirm it, that
| they should be catered for and that "those that open 35 tabs"
| are a vocal minority.
|
| This is the first time I've ever even considered the
| possibility that someone is capable of using a browser with
| only one or a few tabs open at a time. Don't get me wrong,
| I'm sure they exist, but having a million tabs open is so
| ingrained in how I consume information on the internet I
| suppose I kind of forgot it's possible to do it any other
| way.
|
| It makes me wonder if I've _ever_ had only one tab or window
| open at a time? Maybe in the 90s? I don't remember AOL having
| "tabs" the way browsers do now but I think you could have
| multiple windows open.
| d3fault wrote:
| I usually have a max of 2 windows open with anywhere
| between 4 and 9 tabs open. We do exist!
| mulmen wrote:
| I typically have 5-10 browser windows open with 4-10 tabs
| per window across 5+ spaces.
|
| I'm terrified of the next redesign of spaces.
| mamp wrote:
| I think their hoping tab groups will reduce the 35 tab
| situation, but it's too hard to organise when in information
| gathering mode. I hope they put a preference option to go back
| to the current interface. I'll be filing a bug report.
| nbzso wrote:
| I have a controversial theory.
|
| Foolish design is everywhere. Look at web trends. No underlined
| links, no clear button distinction, childish color schemes and
| rounded corners everywhere.
|
| Apple UI/UX design is trend setter. They try to be cool and
| resonate with naive audiences. This is Design by Marketing.
|
| This is the result of corporations hiring cheap millennial
| designers without proper design foundations, ready to serve and
| adapt to marketing concepts with compliance and enthusiasm. The
| burden of boomers expertise and professional code is no go for
| the future designed to serve boards of executives and
| shareholders.
|
| This trend will continue rapidly, complexity will increase to the
| point where users will need AI to make choices and filter UX crap
| created by semi-pros for pennies. Yep.
| least wrote:
| What constitutes an adult color scheme for you? Why do rounded
| corners offend you? Are there examples of what you think are
| appropriately designed products or websites?
|
| This sounds needlessly derisive.
| canada_dry wrote:
| It seems like UX/UI design has devolved to eliminate extensive
| (actual) user testing/feedback/enhancement.
|
| Instead, the big FANG cos are happy to accept whatever their
| 'experienced' designer thinks is an _exciting new look_ with some
| perfunctory review by the marketing dept.
|
| IMHO the _what 's-old-is-new-again_ can't come soon enough when
| it comes to UI design!
| cloogshicer wrote:
| Fully agree. I don't understand wtf Apple is doing with their UIs
| lately. It's as if they were purposefully trying to make things
| worse.
| zer wrote:
| I wouldn't attribute it to malice. The author has got that
| probably right: the people in charge think in iOS terms.
| minxomat wrote:
| Ah yes iOS where refreshing a page now requires you to menu
| dive instead of having an always accessible button up top
| sbuk wrote:
| Tap the top of the screen and Safari jumps to the top of
| the page. Pull down to refresh.
| mulmen wrote:
| That's three steps that used to take one. In exchange for
| losing the capability to _quickly refresh a webpage in a
| browser_ we got... nothing?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| What if I don't want to lose my spot in the page by
| scrolling to the top[1]? This is a straight up UI
| regression. Just because there are workarounds doesn't
| mean it's not shit.
|
| Edit:
|
| [1] For example if I want to load new comments in a HN
| thread I'm reading.
| lupinglade wrote:
| On macOS too now, it's beyond ridiculous.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| 1. Design changes
|
| 2. People whine
|
| 3. People adapt and forget, maybe even prefer it
|
| Nothing new here.
|
| If people continue to whine after more than a few months, there
| might be something worth investigating. Reddit comes to mind.
| freediver wrote:
| To get the full picture:
|
| Rationale behind the Safari 15 design
| https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10029/
| arata wrote:
| Relevant transcript from the first two minutes of the video:
|
| > Since very early in the evolution of the web browser, most of
| the browsers we've used have had a few fundamental thing in
| common. There's a very tall toolbar at the top with a slot for
| the URL that's on it's own line. And the website stays inside
| this space, this portal to the web, the viewport. Of course, as
| users, we've trained ourselves to put all of our focus on the
| website that we're using, but for years, the browser itself has
| maintained a strong visual presence. No matter how a website is
| designed to look and feel, the browser interface framed that
| design and dominated it. What if we could get rid of that frame
| and extend the design of the website to every edge of the
| window? Well, that's what we've done in Safari 15. This year
| we've reimagined the browsing experience as we know it. We're
| putting all the focus on the web content. The new Safari blends
| the tab bar into each website by changing its background color.
| The entire interface is on one line, and things naturally
| appear when needed. This makes your content feel more
| expansive. Each web page or web app takes over, extending to
| all four edges of the window. The browser interface yields to
| the content.
| catchmeifyoucan wrote:
| > We need open tabs, we need to see what's open at all times, and
| we need to be able to quickly jump to the tab we need in the here
| and now.
|
| I'm working on Amna which tackles the too many tabs problem, and
| this is a huge generalization. I can have 22 tabs open just for
| single task. For example opening two HN articles in new tabs will
| bring the total to 3. Seeing what's open all the time is
| overwhelming to most users. I'm a fan of the new tab groups and
| unlike chrome which puts a bunch of dots, Safari neatly sends
| tabs away to work with less clutter and a blank slate.
| tayistay wrote:
| Call me crazy, but I'd prefer the tabs as a big stack on the left
| side.
| pickledcods wrote:
| Absolutely underrated comment! Most websites use only 60% of
| the available screen width.
| desas wrote:
| You let your web browser use your whole screen width?
| pcurve wrote:
| I would love that option too.
| FractalHQ wrote:
| Vivaldi is nice for this
| recursive wrote:
| Edge does it.
| mulmen wrote:
| Modern UX people are monsters that come out every few months to
| terrorize me. I'm honestly scared to install MacOS updates.
|
| I don't recall the last time an update made anything better for
| me. But I'm a "power user" so I guess that means I should expect
| to re-learn basic navigation endlessly.
|
| My computer is a tool. Please stop changing how I use it.
| shinycode wrote:
| You're welcome to use Windows XP for that matter ... seriously
| I understand because it's a tool for me as well but it's the
| price to pay when you have a product used by millions /
| billions of people ... there is so much different needs and
| every user thinks he's the center which is understandable but
| Apple and others have to evolve with their vision they can't
| stuck themselves in the past because we like things the way
| they are now. We have the choice of switching platform, writing
| our own or not updating software as well but we as individual
| are not and will never be the center and << majority >> use
| case ...
| blue_box wrote:
| " And it makes no sense whatsoever that one would want to go
| looking for the Reload button in a tiny menu with a More...
| icon."
|
| I don't even remember when was the last time I clicked the reload
| button. I just press command + R.
| jpxw wrote:
| Yeah, to me much of this sounds great. No menu bar? Great, I
| never use it. Keyboard shortcuts make it unnecessary. No reload
| button? Great, one less thing I don't use cluttering up the UI.
|
| I understand that less experienced users may find this
| confusing though. Although saying that i think anyone can learn
| Cmd-R and Cmd-W, and would be better off for it.
|
| I agree with the article on the tab/address bar merge being bad
| though.
| arvinsim wrote:
| It makes no sense to optimize for niche power users over
| general casual users.
| nlitened wrote:
| Can you name any non-niche casual website that requires you
| to refresh the current page?
|
| Unfortunately, I can't recall one, and it seems to me that
| refreshing a page in 2021 has become a niche feature
| reserved for IT guys who know how HTTP works.
| yakubin wrote:
| Stop patronizing casual users. Cmd+R isn't rocket science,
| just like Cmd+C. Casual users aren't monkeys.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Then why not remove ALL the buttons. Stick them in a
| hamburger menu. And present everyone with a list of keys
| they must memorize during OS first boot?
|
| This is how far UX discussion has fallen since the early
| 00s. We went from talking about affordances,
| discoverability, and "principle of least surprise" to
| fashion. "I like it to look clean. Less chrome, and let
| the users eat shortcut keys, hamburger menus, and
| gestures."
| yakubin wrote:
| Your comment doesn't reply to anything in mine. I haven't
| written anything about hamburger menus, things looking
| lean, chrome or gestures.
|
| The only thing my comment was about is the practice of
| imagining non-computer-expert people to be mindless
| zombies who don't know basic stuff. Cmd+C, Cmd+V, and
| Cmd+R are one of the most popular shortcuts in computers,
| known by people who aren't computer experts. Just because
| something is done with the keyboard, doesn't mean it's
| some l33t knowledge exclusive to "power users". But
| computer professionals often talk about "casual users" as
| stupid, probably to feel better about themselves, because
| they know all that oh-so-advanced-hard stuff.
|
| So yes, just like a "copy" button would be a waste of
| space, when Cmd+C is so widespread, a "refresh" button is
| similar in that regard.
|
| Apple would be the last company to optimize for power
| users.
| petepete wrote:
| I love the colour of the page 'bleeding' into the 'tab area' -
| providing they can maintain a decent level of contrast. It looks
| really nice in the provided example.
|
| Of course, I hope they've used `<meta name="theme-color"...`
| instead of the background colour so pages with a white background
| and a black header don't end up with white chrome.
| sirn wrote:
| They do use theme-color and only fallback to either page
| background color or header background color when theme-color is
| not present[1][2]
|
| [1]: https://files.grid.in.th/z3ox7o.jpg
|
| [2]: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10029/
| petepete wrote:
| Ah, thanks for clarifying.
| arata wrote:
| > providing they can maintain a decent level of contrast
|
| Safari wouldn't apply the theme-color if it makes the UI
| inaccessible (it has a very few narrow range of color that it
| won't apply). Also, if the tag is not specified, Safari would
| not blend the website content into the tab bar.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I'm not going to take Safari over Firefox or even Chrome, but
| this design isn't thoughtless. It looked to me from the demo that
| they did put some thought into the design. Integrating the
| address bar into the tabs is a nice idea for saving the precious
| vertical space people (validly) keep complaining that we're
| losing. It won't work well for me because I have too many tabs
| open all the time, but they even thought about that issue and
| gave tab groups as a way to help keep the number of tabs under
| control.
| Animats wrote:
| Maybe Apple will spin off desktops and laptops as a "pro" or
| "business" division or company, as HP did.
| jonplackett wrote:
| I thought this was gonna be about the weird floating address bar
| at the bottom I saw on the iOS demo video.
|
| Now that's gonna be annoying to design a webpage around.
| cwizou wrote:
| I've been using Safari 15 on macOS and iOS since they released
| the betas and while I could get used to, and enjoyed some of the
| changes, some I don't think I'll be able to live with.
|
| From good to bad :
|
| - The tab grouping feature. I'm not sure I understand the
| complaining, as this is a purely optional feature that you don't
| have to use. Each new window you open will have it's own "group"
| that isn't shared anywhere, but you can, optionally, save tab
| groups that get synced across OSes. I find that to be very useful
| to make thematic groups and being able to switch from one to
| another easily on iPad, and having those groups opened on
| separate windows on mac.
|
| - The sidebar is a bit clunky on iOS, for example if you want to
| browse your bookmarks through it, you'll have to go back to the
| root state of that tab (pressing back a few times) in order to be
| able to close it. Thankfully, that's not an issue on macOS !
| Having multiple back buttons on screen though, I'm not certain
| that's a great design for novices, but you can argue it's more of
| a "power user" feature.
|
| - Hiding the close button on a mouseover on the favicon on mac.
| Quite frankly this one was infuriating the first couple of days,
| but I did get over it. I do think it will be very jarring for
| most users though, and a very bad experience for not much reason.
| Even more puzzling is the fact that on iPad, since you can't
| mouseover, the close box is visible for the main tab, but not for
| the others, so closing a non selected tab is a two click process
| that brings back (or maybe reload) the tab, and that doesn't feel
| good.
|
| - Hiding the reload button. As someone who don't always have my
| hands on the keyboard, I used that button fairly often on macOS.
| The touch target to the ... is also fairly small on iOS and I
| can't say I'm hitting it all the time. The menu that pops also
| has a peculiar design with some buttons being extra high, and a
| whole, massively scrollable list of features that are not in an
| order that particularly make sense to my usage. It's one of this
| case where you'd wish for some usage based learning as Microsoft
| tried to do years ago with Office.
|
| - The Chrome tinting is something that kinda looks good
| sometimes, but gets visually jarring quickly. HN is a good
| example. I do like Orange, but that's just too much to my taste
| (that feature doesn't seem to be there on iPad). It can be
| disabled though in Preferences which is good.
|
| - Moving around the location bar. That's the change I don't think
| I can get over, this has been terrible to use for me in practice.
| The fact that the bar changes width and location, I find visually
| and mentally jarring on mac. On iPad it's not much better, though
| at least you understand the premise there, it's about saving
| vertical space. Conceptually I can't get behind that one : they
| have voluntarily constrained their design to their smallest
| screen size, and did it mostly for cross OS consistency.
|
| Right now you can revert the top bar using this gist on mac, and
| I thoroughly hope that Apple will consider making this optional,
| if only, under the guise of an accessibility preference :
| https://gist.github.com/zhuowei/8ad1dd478df0efeb67baf2088e5c...
| lupinglade wrote:
| I've been using it every day since they released the beta as
| well and you are spot on.
| nikomen wrote:
| I've considered switching to Safari on my Mac because I had heard
| that it has stellar performance. However, with no support for
| uBlock Origin because of their incomplete implementation of the
| extensions API, and now these UI changes, it looks like I'll
| stick with Firefox.
|
| I still plan to stay with my Mac because of the ecosystem. I'm
| one of the few who seems to actually like Windows 10. There are
| warts in Microsoft's software, just as there are in Apple's. But
| I like having my iPhone integrated with my Mac. The only option
| on Windows is Android phone integration. I'm trying to remove
| myself from Google's ecosystem, though.
| throayobviousl wrote:
| Adguard is 99% the same, and free, and on iOS.
| saagarjha wrote:
| AdGuard runs an Electron app in the background, though.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Is it free? I'm looking at the Mac download now and it says
| that it's a 14-day trial with a monthly subscription
| afterwards, and I'm not entirely happy with relying on a
| subscription-based service.
| pram wrote:
| Adguard for Safari is free. Adguard for Mac is a separate
| thing (that costs money)
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-for-
| safari/id144014725...
| michelb wrote:
| It is not. But you can buy a cheap lifetime family account
| for Adguard on stacksocial for $20/$29. (not affiliated,
| but extremely happy user, been using it for years)
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Adguard is NOT free. Beyond that, it is the worst plague of
| the modern computing age - subscription.
|
| An ad blocker has access to extremely invasive data and
| Adblock wants me to pay them a subscription so they can get
| my PII and associate it with my browsing?
|
| It is also not Open Source so I can't rely on the hope that
| someone smarter than me would have caught its dirty tricks.
|
| I use Safari for a tiny subset of my browsing due to this
| gaping hole...
| pram wrote:
| Adguard for Safari is both free and open source
|
| https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardForSafari
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| You are right - I searched "adblock safari."
| kruuuder wrote:
| Ad blockers on Safari are apparently unable to block YouTube
| ads, due to API limitations.
|
| I wish Firefox wouldn't excessively drain the battery on
| macOS, and Chrome wouldn't excessively drain personal data to
| Google, and Brave wouldn't excessively violate the trust of
| its users.
|
| As of today, there's not a single browser on macOS that I
| don't strongly dislike. Looks like Safari won't improve soon.
| pram wrote:
| Adguard blocks YouTube ads. Maybe actually try it before
| dismissing it lol
| kruuuder wrote:
| I tried 1blocker and Wipr. Both failed to block YouTube
| ads due to said API limitations (as confirmed by their
| devs).
|
| If it's in fact an API limitation, why bother trying yet
| another blocker? After your reply, I did a quick search
| for Adguard and found this:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Adguard/comments/nahkk4/adguard_
| not...
| freediver wrote:
| You can try Orion, which is based on a WebKit fork and has
| experimental support Chrome/Firefox extensions, including
| uBlock Origin.
| xrisk wrote:
| I don't really care about the address bar being small, but I
| dislike that you can't open too many tabs at a time. IMO you
| should be able to see at least the favicon even when you have 15+
| tabs open.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Am I the only person who likes this change? Normally, I'd have
| 4-5 tabs that I keep switching between fairly often and then
| 20-xx most of the time useless, de facto bookmarks. I use a
| keyboard shortcut with fuzzy find to pick the right one.
|
| Reclaiming the address bar space to cram more tabs on the screen
| is a marginal gain, at least in my case.
| felipeerias wrote:
| What I find most interesting in this discussion is that it
| implicitly hinges on how each of us organises and browses
| information. For example, some people are good at recalling
| stuff that they have seen before, so bookmarks and search will
| work well for them.
|
| At the same time, other people can handle a lot of information
| but only as long as it is readily present in front of them.
| Hide that information away and it is as if it never existed.
| Tools that depend on their ability to recall information will
| fail them. Tools that give them the ability to keep that
| information available and visible will make them shine.
| lloeki wrote:
| It seems to me as if some OP/commenters fail to realise that
| not everyone uses browsers the same way, in turn making
| assumptions that things make no sense on that basis, e.g tabs
| as history va tabs as actively used documents, vertical tabs
| saving space when fullscreen-ish but not with side by side
| windows, or having multiple windows each with a few tabs vs a
| single window with hundreds, single display vs multihead,
| browser as quasi-OS vs browser as web browser (!) with OS as
| OS and native apps, laptop vs desktop, or anything in between
| or beyond that I could not think of right now.
|
| Personally I'm glad Safari isn't yet another Chrome-like UI.
| I did not upgrade to the beta, but it seems to me the choices
| made would make sense for the way I use a browser on a laptop
| or desktop.
|
| It just feels like another flamewar, which I can safely
| ignore while I continue enjoying my daily driver browser.
| PretzelFisch wrote:
| can you search your book marks? And their content? I need
| that.
| TwoBit wrote:
| > Am I the only person who likes this change?
|
| yes
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I'll have to give it more time but so far I like the change.
|
| Typically I have dozens of tabs open, so at first blush it
| might seem that the redesign wouldn't work for me at all, and
| that would be true if I didn't adjust my tab habits.
|
| What I've done is swept those dozens of tabs into a handful of
| purpose-oriented tab groups. I don't _really_ need all of those
| tabs open at all times, all I really needed is somewhere to put
| them that 's more ephemeral and has less management overhead
| than bookmarks. As a result, most groups only have a few tabs
| open and pose no problem with the new UI.
|
| Theoretically, this approach may also have the benefit of
| improving focus. Because online message boards and the like
| live in my "general" tab group, when I'm switched to my
| "programming" tab group I'm soft-locked out of those sites by
| way of reduced accessibility, making it harder to drift off of
| my current task when googling for documentation, etc.
| lawkwok wrote:
| I've started to shift to this workflow too. There is content
| that I use once a week yet the tabs don't always stay the
| same so the tab group paradigm is much better than committing
| everything to bookmarks and having to keep them updated.
| dashwin wrote:
| I like this change as well. I don't use tabs at all, I use
| pinch to show all tabs and switch more often than having to
| align my mouse along the top of the screen to switch to a tab
| after reading the text. It's similar to the KonMari method for
| laying out your things.
| willyt wrote:
| I've not tried 15 yet, but I really like the idea of named
| groups of tabs. I have groups of stuff in windows for things
| that I'm researching and i hate having to open and look at
| every minimised window to see if that is the group of tabs I'm
| looking for as it's often hard to tell from whatever tab url I
| left that window at before i minimised to the dock.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| In Firefox, I use windows for different categories of
| subject/use case. I use the Titler extension to label the
| windows.
| norman784 wrote:
| Workona works for uses cases like you, the only time that
| gets annoying is when you are using firefox containers. So
| I appreciate the new UI (didn't tried it yet) but seems
| that somehow fits my current workflow.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I like it as well, for the same reason: I usually only have 2
| to 4 browser tabs open and the new display works very well for
| users like me. I usually focus on some task or activity, and
| like to keep my working environment tidy. I have worked with
| many people who keep a huge number of tabs and perhaps browser
| windows open - that would bug me, but each to their own...
|
| So, I didn't like the new interface at first, but now I really
| like it. On my M1 MacBook Pro I really like the ability to run
| a few iPadOS apps, and the watch/phone/iPad/laptop handoff
| experience is also very good. I am very happy with the beta OS
| releases from last week.
| enw wrote:
| I like it as well. I typically have only a handful of tabs
| open, for both mental clarity and focus.
|
| There's so much empty space on the address bar, and vertical
| space is typically expensive real estate.
| makecheck wrote:
| I think it's strange that browsers, routinely displaying
| _responsive design layouts_ , have never tried this for their own
| window chrome.
|
| They keep trying to shoehorn all screen sizes and space savings
| into one layout, when the web itself does a wiser thing: it
| adapts and makes better use of space _if available_.
| notriddle wrote:
| But that's not true? Safari for iPad has two very distinct
| layouts. The tough part is making sure it doesn't get
| confusing.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| The new tab/address bar thing could be the reason I switch back
| away from Safari after using it as my main browser for a few
| years due to its energy efficiency compared to Firefox and
| Chrome.
|
| What UI designer thought taking away more space for the tab bar
| was a good idea? Does that person even use a web browser?
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| They're optimizing for a user with a 13" display, who never
| opens more than 5 tabs, and rarely switches pages.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| They are. They are optimizing for end users not developers.
| This UI change must be driving people who keep many tabs open
| nuts (I am not one of these people, I like a tidy environment
| with only a few tabs open that support my current activity).
|
| Maybe Apple has decided to nudge users in the direction of
| Marie Kondo; if a tab does not spark joy get rid of it.
|
| For me, whenever I switch tasks or activities, I usually quit
| out of safari and restart it. I like to concentrate on a
| single activity and not flit around trying to do many things
| at once. Maybe Apple is trying to healthier use of devices,
| as in providing Screen Time usage reports.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| I'm envious that you can prevent interruptions to such an
| extreme.
|
| For the highly-organized, I hear there is a "tab group"
| concept, for additional joy. Not sure how that "plays" with
| multiple windows.
| xvector wrote:
| This is really interesting because it might be the reason I
| switch _to_ Safari after using Firefox for years. All I really
| want is proper site isolation after this.
| oneplane wrote:
| Do you honestly think this is a one-person job? While you might
| question the outcome of product development, assuming that a
| multi-billion R&D budget accounts for 1 designer is just
| unhelpful.
|
| Even just the WebKit commits with Apple engineering contacts is
| enough to build a whole company around...
| TwoBit wrote:
| I'm not arguing this change as good or bad, but the pattern
| of one or two key people deciding something and others
| getting on board to implement it is common.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| One person had the initial idea; the hive mind doesn't make
| radical changes like this on its own.
|
| A lot of times, you can end up with amazing new ideas that
| way, but sometimes a change based on ego / "that person is
| just so brilliant" is just bad. The tab bar thing is going to
| be Touch Bar 2.0, I think.
|
| The question is, how long is Apple going to push it? I was
| hopeful the Touch Bar would die with M1 Macs...
| oneplane wrote:
| I'm sure there is one (administratively) responsible person
| in the end, but I haven't every had a large-scale design
| lean on just 1 person or have very low-quantity lynchpins.
|
| I doubt Apple's inner workings are simplistic in such a way
| that one person with some sort of clout pushed this with no
| further thought.
|
| At the end of the day this is just speculation but purely
| negative speculation is just some form of populism/FUD and
| makes everything worse.
| giuliomagnifico wrote:
| Hmmm this time I don't agree with Riccardo. The new interface to
| me looks better, I'm testing it and I like it, there are only
| things that I don't like:
|
| 1) the "unified color" in the menubar is terrible, really. You
| must disable the overlay tab/menubar coloring because this is the
| only big mess.
|
| 2) you have to make 2 taps in order to open the reading list,
| because you can't "pin" it but when you open the sidebar you have
| to choose anytime if you want to see the RL or bookmarks. And
| this is a bit annoying. Workaround is to use a shortcut (like
| alt-R to open and close the RL and you can see it straight
| without two taps)
| nailer wrote:
| I've said this before on HN, but as a reminder the following are
| all verifiable facts: there is no dedicated macOS team anymore,
| Apple market iPads as a superior alternative to a laptop, and
| macOS as a percentage of revenue has over a long period dwindled
| in favour of iOS (with a few minor blips along the way).
|
| A reasonable conclusion is that macOS isn't apple's priority.
| Meanwhile with WSL and Terminal Microsoft is pushing hard at
| developers. apt get is a better system than home brew and always
| has been. Vote with your wallets.
| threeseed wrote:
| I am going to assume you are ignorant about Windows 11 then.
|
| Because the UI changes they have made there (new Start menu,
| centred task icons) make the OS look very similar to the so
| called abandoned macOS.
| Shadonototro wrote:
| people who make that claim never used macOS for longer than a
| day
|
| windows 11 feels like KDE made by a random tasteless trainee
|
| they don't even support tabs on things like File Explorer,
| you have to swallow that useless and ugly Ribbon interface
|
| and their taskbar-dock-wanabee is miles behind the mac's dock
|
| and let's not talk about the top menu bar, mac os system tray
| is far more useful and customizable than the one on windows
|
| and let's not talk about the notification center
|
| and many more details that make the difference
|
| windows still carry multiple generations of UIs, even on
| Windows 11
| tomduncalf wrote:
| The fact that they have invested what must be an astronomical
| sum in moving Macs over to their own CPU architecture suggests
| otherwise. It's probably more fair to say their vision for
| MacOS doesn't align with what everyone would like?
|
| Personally I'm very happy with MacOS and think Big Sur is a
| great iteration, I really like the look and feel, and the
| attention to detail to UI that I find lacking in alternatives.
| But that's the beauty of choice, not everyone has to agree!
| nailer wrote:
| I think they need a platform for developers and macOS
| diehards. But fast forward 10 years macOS won't exist.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| You're probably right, but that won't happen until we can
| do all the things we care about on whatever the "one true
| platform" I don't think. I believe Apple will always
| support "power users", if just because they need to support
| developers, and their large audience of creatives using
| their machines.
| wwalexander wrote:
| The MacPorts project has existed for 7 years longer than
| Homebrew, and is a much more sane experience similar to FreeBSD
| ports. In fact, Jordan Hubbard, the co-founder of FreeBSD and
| the original author of FreeBSD ports, was involved in the
| MacPorts project (along with other Apple employees).
|
| I'm always baffled that Homebrew is seen as the standard macOS
| package manager. MacPorts has existed for many more years. It
| behaves more similarly to package managers on other operating
| systems without weird symlink tricks. It doesn't send analytics
| to Google. It has over 25,000 active ports (Homebrew doesn't
| seem to publish its formulae count but SO threads seem to
| indicate something in the region of 4,000). To each their own,
| but I highly recommend anyone reading this to give MacPorts a
| try.
| rswail wrote:
| Second vote for Macports. It's awesome, and filed some bugs
| during the Big Sur beta, they all got triaged and processed
| really fast with new package releases only days later.
| mapgrep wrote:
| Macports is great and better than homebrew. But it's an add
| on, with no (official) support from Apple. Apt is first
| party, WSL is first party. Debian and Microsoft won't make
| breaking changes intentionally that impact those systems.
| This happens regularly with homebrew and Apple. (Macports
| having a more independent universe in /opt and being less
| vulnerable to breakage is partly why I prefer it. Although it
| still takes a dependency on Xcode cli tools last I looked.)
| jtbayly wrote:
| I tried MacPorts back in the day and royally screwed up my
| computer and couldn't figure out how to fix it. Iirc,
| homebrew symlinking prevents what happened to me.
|
| However, I've learned a lot since that time, so perhaps
| macports would work just fine for me now.
| FractalHQ wrote:
| Safari is trash anyways it can hardly even render an svg properly
| and it sucks at webgl among many other things
| throwzaway20102 wrote:
| Go play fortnite
| dashwin wrote:
| I really like the new design on my 11inch MacBook. I don't use
| the tab bar, I use expose for tabs by pinching my fingers and
| there's a great view there to switch tabs.
| jaredcwhite wrote:
| I don't have macOS 15 beta yet, but I'm running the Safari
| Technology Preview now on Big Sur which has most (all?) of the
| new UI changes.
|
| I love pretty much everything about it. It looks gorgeous. Tab
| Groups are incredible. The "address bar is in the tab" concept
| does take some getting used to and that's likely the area they'll
| tweak the most over the next few months. But overall, huge step
| forward in my book. Can't wait to get it on my iPad as well.
| 0x0 wrote:
| The new UI changes were introduced in tech preview 126, but
| that one is only available for macOS 12. The download page at
| https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/ says "macOS 11 -
| coming soon".
|
| I have tech preview 125 from earlier and no software updates
| are available in system preferences.
|
| So how do you have the new 126 UI changes on Big Sur already?
| matwood wrote:
| It was live briefly before being taken down.
| defaultname wrote:
| Linked article refers to the changes in Safari as "thoughtless
| UI", which is a fairly common argument used against changes that
| people don't like. Against Apple, Microsoft, WinAmp, Reddit, etc.
|
| But let's be fair and note that there quite certainly a lot of
| very proud, considerate, intentional designers and developers who
| are behind this change. People who probably put thousands
| (millions?) multiples of "thought" in considering the changes,
| versus someone saying "Whoa...this is different and I don't like
| different." The whine about site colors bleeding into the chrome
| seem particularly subjective, yet they're presented as if they're
| objective truths.
|
| I use a macOS beta 15 device beside a 14 device, all day every
| day. At first install it was jarring, but then I became
| acclimated to it and it's fine. Tab groups are fantastic. I
| appreciate the aesthetics of chrome bleed, but that's just my
| subjective opinion. My only complaint about the browser is that
| it's crash-prone right now.
| EricE wrote:
| There is zero reason to eliminate the tab bar and combine it
| with the address bar. It's idiotic and there should at least be
| an option to undo it.
|
| I have accidentally close more tabs than ever before - and
| that's with me actively being aware of it and trying to be
| careful. It's a HORRIBLE user design.
| capex wrote:
| Did you even read the article? The whole article is about why
| the UI changes are thoughtless.
| defaultname wrote:
| Yes, I read the article. And I completely disagree with a lot
| of the claims made in it. Claiming that these changes are
| "thoughtless" is grossly unprofessional foolishness to
| pejoratively stomp one's feet to "get their way". It's
| embarrassing.
|
| You can disagree with the changes. You can make arguments
| (understand that other people _also_ have arguments -- for
| instance on the importance of the address bar, or how a
| browser should work with 35 tabs, which fwiw they all are
| trash at that level), but if you need to demand that anyone
| with a different opinion is "thoughtless", you have no
| position at all.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Colors bleeding into chrome could make the line of death less
| clear, and therefore put users at risk.
| egypturnash wrote:
| "the line of death"?
| lloeki wrote:
| the clear separation between trusted outer chrome and
| untrusted content, so that content cannot fake chrome to
| malevolent ends (e.g faking a dialog, a SSL lock icon, a
| URL...)
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Honestly, I don't think that almost anyone in real life
| cares about this "line of death" than yourself.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| FWIW, while watching my mom use her MacBook I've noticed
| that sometimes she can't tell the difference between a
| website with a back button and the browser's own back
| button. For less tech savvy users, the delineation isn't
| always clear. Especially if the browser's chrome changes
| frequently
| defaultname wrote:
| Way too late to edit this, but please note that I erroneously
| referred to macOS 14 and 15...not sure how I didn't notice that
| before, but it should be macOS 11(.4?) and 12. My mind was
| thinking of iOS 14 and 15.
|
| Alas, don't want anyone perpetuating that mistake. Cheers!
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| Apple has increasingly delivered "looks good, feels bad" design
| since the Jobs era, and I suspect this is organizationally
| endemic.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I think it was more specific to a small group of powerful
| people, because it seems to be reversing. Slowly, but I can
| see that progress is being made.
| luffapi wrote:
| Apple has always been like that with the exception of the
| Apple IIe.
|
| Lately things have been taking even more of a nose dive
| though. Have you ever used Apple Music? There is _no_ excuse
| for that product to be as bad as it is. It's probably the
| worst mainstream consumer app in the market.
| setpatchaddress wrote:
| This sort of thing is absolutely not new since the "Jobs
| era."
|
| Early Mac OS X had exactly these criticisms leveled at it,
| for years.
|
| Also
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushed_metal_(interface)
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Isn't Mac OS X solidly in the Jobs era?
| luffapi wrote:
| Yes, it's basically NeXT and is 100% a Jobs thing. The
| parent is correct that it's had major ux issues since day
| 1 though. Interestingly they also mixed in terrible OS 9
| ux (cough Finder, cough .DS_STORE).
| orangegreen wrote:
| Reminds me of how almost any corporate logo redesign works.
| Company makes a new logo, everyone is outraged by how awful and
| horrible it is, then we get used to it.
|
| The Discord logo redesign was one of those logos that elicited
| a very odd amount of outrage for what it was. Multiple video
| essays were made about just how terrible the logo is [0].
|
| It's really not a bad logo at all. It's a minor change. But
| once you get used to something, any change seems to be
| perceived as a threat. After a few months, I bet most people
| will get used to the new Safari UI and forget what they were
| even mad out.
|
| [0]
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=discord+new+log...
| egypturnash wrote:
| And the new one appeals to a different market - personally I
| thought the old one was pretty ugly, especially with how it
| would shatter into a ton of spinning fragments when it was
| loading. It said "hello this is a safe space for Gamerz", and
| I am very much not a Gamerz.
|
| Now it doesn't say that. And now I'm less inactive on the
| various discord chats I've been invited to. Most of which are
| not really full of Gamerz anyway - but staring at that very
| Gamerz logo for a few seconds every time I opened the thing
| made me not want to open it.
| mavhc wrote:
| Interesting, I don't think I've ever cared what a logo
| meant, just that it was easy to distinguish from all the
| other apps on my taskbar.
|
| It's currently a light purple circle with a white blob in
| the middle, I often can't find it
| GlitchMr wrote:
| I don't think the logo is bad myself, it is a tiny change
| overall.
|
| However, it's worth noting it was shown alongside wordmark,
| and the font used by that wordmark (a modified version of
| Ginto Nord Black) is... not great, in particular I think the
| letter "i" looks somewhat off in relation to other characters
| in word "Discord" - I don't know what's wrong with it, I'm
| not a typographer.
|
| That said, because the wordmark is not seen often (pretty
| much the main page and the page announcing new logo), in
| practice it's fine. After logging in to Discord there is no
| real reason to go back to the main page.
|
| Also, out of curiosity, I checked the videos you linked to,
| pretty much all consider the logo to be fine, but they all
| criticize the font or the letter "i" specifically (even the
| video called "discord's new logo is alright").
| racl101 wrote:
| Um, you don't need to waste copious amounts of dollars on
| designers and developers to know that it is a terrible idea to
| mix the address bar with the tabs.
|
| It's a mess, and the vertical space you save is nominal compare
| to the increased frustration you will create for users when
| they have a tougher time being able to read their URL
| (something that's already an issue for everyone) and relegating
| the tabs to about half the horizontal space they could have
| had.
|
| This is utterly pointless. It's not about being an old person
| resistant to change, it's about "fixing" something that was not
| broken and not even doing a lateral move, but totally
| regressing the utility it served.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > Linked article refers to the changes in Safari as
| "thoughtless UI", which is a fairly common argument used
| against changes that people don't like. Against Apple,
| Microsoft, WinAmp, Reddit, etc. [...] someone saying
| "Whoa...this is different and I don't like different."
|
| Back in the 90s Microsoft did put some research effort into
| Windows 95 and i do not really remember much of a blowback to
| the new UI despite being radically different from Windows 3.1.
| There _were_ a lot of people complaining for the higher system
| requirements, how Win95 felt slower and even how
| "infantilized" DOS by forcing a GUI on them, but as far as the
| Windows UI itself goes pretty much everyone agreed was a big
| improvement to the point that other UIs started copying it to a
| functional level (ie. not just the window theme). There were
| even projects that recreated it on Windows 3.1 (Calmira).
|
| To this day a lot of people consider Windows 95 to be one of
| the best and most well thought UIs.
|
| (and honestly even though i think that _overall_ Win2K is peak
| Windows, i do believe that ever since Win98 Microsoft started
| taking a form-over-function approach - see the toolbar buttons
| losing their relief and becoming shapeless elements
| indistinguishable from any other icon despite having different
| interaction with the user)
|
| Sure, some reactions in UI changes tend to be "i do not like
| different" but that doesn't make _all_ reactions so. And even
| then, do not dismiss the pure "i do not like different"
| reactions either: people spent time and energy to learn the UI
| they use, unless a change is a radical improvement (e.g. Win3.1
| -> Win95) they are very justified to be pissed off at how the
| designers of the new UI wasted all that effort and nullified
| their knowledge for marginal gain (assuming there is any at
| all... or even worse, becoming harder to use like many
| overpadded mobile-first UIs look on desktops).
|
| (the same applies to changes programmers often dislike too,
| like languages, APIs, frameworks, etc - for many users UI
| changes are the equivalent of Python2 to Python3, except as
| users are often powerless to do anything about UI changes, they
| happen way more often)
| RulerOf wrote:
| >I appreciate the aesthetics of chrome bleed
|
| This one is a particularly bad idea. Regular people don't
| always understand the difference between the browser and the
| contents of a web page. This blurs that line even more for
| people who already have trouble seeing it in the first place.
| laurent123456 wrote:
| > People who probably put thousands (millions?) multiples of
| "thought" in considering the changes
|
| Thoughts maybe, but did they ask users what they wanted? Did
| they run usability studies to verify that these changes make
| sense? I can't imagine that they did. Certain UI changes in
| macOS, Windows, etc. are so obviously bad (and are eventually
| changed) that no matter how much they thought about it, they
| didn't care to check what users thought.
| defaultname wrote:
| Every user thinks they're the aggregate "users", though. That
| their personal opinion and take is universal.
|
| For instance the address bar on here is a canonical truth and
| is the linchpin of the experience. See how every time a
| browser touches it (e.g. Chrome truncating the address) is
| met with mobs of the angry. Many users -- including even
| "power" users -- seldom interact with the address bar. Nor is
| it verification of anything much. It simply isn't that
| important anymore.
|
| Another comment mentions that the reload button is two clicks
| away, which is a fair point but that everyone who actually
| uses reload (generally developers -- zero web apps should
| ever require the user to hit reload) use a keyboard shortcut.
|
| Eh.
|
| "Certain UI changes in macOS, Windows, etc. are so obviously
| bad (and are eventually changed)"
|
| True. At the same time, _every_ UI change of anything ever
| has yielded a firestorm of criticism and pushback. And more
| times than not the new design was better and people acclimate
| to it and eventually prefer it. I judge nothing on initial
| reception.
| spockz wrote:
| > Many users -- including even "power" users -- seldom
| interact with the address bar. Nor is it verification of
| anything much. It simply isn't that important anymore.
|
| I interact with the address bar every time I go to page or
| site. It is my single most interfaces with the browser
| after the sites themselves.
|
| And that it isn't much use for verification is exactly the
| reason why people advocate that it should display all
| information!
| jorvi wrote:
| One of the clearest examples of this for me is having the
| address bar at the bottom on mobile devices. There is
| pretty much no disadvantage to placing it there yet
| whenever a browser does that, people get inevitably angry.
| I hope Apple sticks with it and the other iOS browsers like
| Brave adopt it.
|
| Edit: point proven
| [deleted]
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Was this an optional setting? Was it suddenly turned on
| with the option to turn it off buried in a settings menu
| than normal users are scared of?
|
| I actually didn't know iOS had this, I only know about
| FireFox on Android and it asked me if I wanted to opt in
| before thrusting it upon me. That's a good way to make
| major UI changes.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Every user thinks they're the aggregate "users", though.
| That their personal opinion and take is universal.
|
| Because it is. Ultimately, your comfort is the only thing
| that matters when you're using a computer (particularly
| Macs). If something doesn't operate in the way that you
| want it to, why is that not a valid argument for replacing
| it?
| mavhc wrote:
| It's not a valid argument that everyone should bend to
| your whim, it's possible a valid argument that (a) there
| should be a load of config options and/or (b) you should
| be able to edit the source code to make it work how you
| want.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > did they ask users what they wanted?
|
| This is Apple we're talking about, the last time they asked
| users about something is when they failed to litigate
| Corellium for virtualizing their software.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| UI changes are only good if they improve usability. By far most
| UI changes these days are only done for the sake of looking
| different and "fresh", UI design has become purely fashion
| driven. Where's the scientific research and white papers going
| along with the Safari UI changes which clearly justify point by
| point why every single change makes sense, all backed by user
| studies? All I usually see is "emotional bullshit", not
| rational facts when UI designers talk about their work.
|
| This used to be different during the 80's and 90's and I'm
| convinced that this change (turning UI design from
| science/engineering into fashion) is why we are deep in a UX
| crisis.
| jhelphenstine wrote:
| S/UI/clothing; your argument suggests the move to add color
| to fabric doesn't make sense because it is simply fashion and
| has aught to do with the interface presented by a shirt. I
| think the parent comment nails it on subjectivity; the form
| of a thing is as much a part as its function. The luxury
| goods industry attests as much.
| lowercased wrote:
| i generally decide my own clothing. and... if I choose UI
| X... I would like to keep using it. At some point, I have
| to adopt someone else's ideas of 'good UI' in order to keep
| using a computer for 'every day' stuff. At some point, my
| online banking forces an upgrade, and that means 'new UI',
| whether I like it or not. I can keep wearing 70s flares and
| still go in and use a local bank if I chose to.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| A functional tool can still look nice, but the function is
| still more important than the looks, otherwise it's just
| useless bling (the fashion industry is the perfect example
| though, they need to sell new stuff each year without
| actually changing anything important, all they can really
| do is change pointless details).
| Closi wrote:
| A functional tool can look nice, but a tool designed with
| a "function only" mentality is very unlikely to look
| nice.
|
| Good design is a balance of many factors.
| sqqqqrly wrote:
| Poor analogy. A better one for clothing would be to remove
| the button and zipper from pants for a cleaner look.
| jimbokun wrote:
| So modern UI design is spandex?
| DangitBobby wrote:
| It's removing all buttoned and zippered pants from your
| store one year and replacing them with spandex one year,
| then coming back in 5 years and removing all spandex in
| favor of buttons and zippers.
| mavhc wrote:
| Elastic does work much better, also suspenders are 10x
| better than belts
| ephimetheus wrote:
| Mozilla was doing exactly this with their Firefox redesign
| and everyone on HN hated it because stuff was different.
|
| I think the problem is everyone on here hates it when stuff
| they use changes and that's all.
| yosamino wrote:
| I think very generally speaking, you have a point. But
| there are genuinely changes which make things worse.
|
| For example, in Firefox 89 the contrast between the active
| tab and the inactive tab is so low that they are not
| distinguishable when the viewing angle to the screen or the
| lighting isn't perfect - looks fancy, but is not even
| acceptable by their accessibility standards. On top of that
| they removed the blue bar that - as a crutch - indicated
| the active tab ?
|
| I don't understand being this invested in such an obiously
| bad design decision - contrast is just neccessary.
|
| All that being said, I found a bug report from 19 years
| ago, when Firefox was still called Phoenix, that complained
| about almost the exact same issue (sans the blue bar), and
| it got fixed.
|
| I don't think "UX crisis" is neccessarily too strong a
| word.
| Closi wrote:
| > UI changes are only good if they improve usability.
|
| This is true only if usability is all you care about.
|
| In the real world people like things with good aesthetics,
| and like beautiful things, and it's important for Apple to
| make things that users like.
|
| If looks didn't matter every user interface and website would
| be plain and high-contrast.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| A "plain and high-contrast" UI sounds like a good thing
| TBH.
| jolux wrote:
| Well you can go use Windows on the high-contrast setting
| then.
| zingplex wrote:
| A setting that most electron and web apps will completely
| ignore.
| leucineleprec0n wrote:
| exactly. just fucking flipping the "contrast, on" switch
| buried in accessibility is not a panacea, and it is no
| substitute for a regular high-contrast UI on beeauty
| grounds alone! God forbid third-party apps even utilizing
| a native API for it.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| _> Where 's the scientific research and white papers going
| along with the Safari UI changes which clearly justify point
| by point why every single change makes sense, all backed by
| user studies?_
|
| Are you being hyperbolic, or is this your actual position?
| That's a ridiculously high bar that most organizations could
| not muster (and there's no way Apple would release that stuff
| publicly anyway).
|
| "Emotional bullshit" is so needlessly negative. We're not
| machines -- we have emotions! If a UI designer can change an
| interface to please me a little more, that's a good thing.
| jimbokun wrote:
| UX used to be driven by researchers like Bruce Tognazzini
| and Jakob Nielsen, who absolutely did studies with actual
| users to drive their designs.
|
| > If a UI designer can change an interface to please me a
| little more, that's a good thing.
|
| Without observing actual users, how do you know if you are
| pleasing them, or just pleasing yourself?
| RobertKerans wrote:
| As parent is an actual user, I guess they'll be able to
| tell if the UI pleases them.
|
| Edit:
|
| > UX used to be driven by researchers like Bruce
| Tognazzini and Jakob Nielsen, who absolutely did studies
| with actual users to drive their designs.
|
| Large [UI driven] companies still do this or hire
| agencies to do so (of which there are far more nowadays
| given the field is more mature). The fact that UX
| researchers haven't much visibility outside of UX --
| Nielsen started blogging relentlessly at a point in time
| where there wasn't really anyone else doing that, and it
| was hoovered up by a wider audience that needed that
| knowledge. That _doesn 't_ mean _in any way_ that he 's
| unique, or that companies who can afford UX teams don't
| do this. Nielsen and Tognazzini -- they were
| popularisers, good at producing easily digestible writing
| for a general audience
| flohofwoe wrote:
| I'm dead serious. Almost every piece of software (and
| hardware) in a computer is driven by incremental
| improvements backed by research. Operating system kernels,
| file systems, databases, 3D-APIs, etc... there are tons of
| publications, white papers, discussions, all happening in
| public how those components are improved over the decades.
| There are dead ends from time to time, but those fail, and
| those failures are also discussed, analyzed and eventually
| replaced with better solutions.
|
| Why are user interfaces special in this regard? Where's the
| research, where are the white papers which clearly
| demonstrate what the advantages and disadvantages of
| specific user interface philosophies are?
| sonofhans wrote:
| As a UX designer & executive for 30 years, I'll respond.
|
| I agree that UX/UI is sometimes swayed more by fashion
| than empirical goals in service of the user. E.g., Jony
| Ive's sad obsession with flat (featureless) design in iOS
| 7 is something we are still paying a price for.
|
| However, the majority of UX research these days goes into
| things that are explicitly not in service of the user.
| Facebook doesn't want you to be happy, they want you to
| keep using their product. Pay-to-play games don't want
| you to have a good life, they want to squeeze micro-
| transactions from you at every opportunity.
|
| Creating and propagating these manipulative dark patterns
| is a huge amount of leading-edge UX these days. It works.
| We know how to manipulate people towards goals that are
| antithetical to their well-being. The tech industry as a
| whole makes billions of dollars a day doing exactly this
| thing.
|
| So yes, the research exists. UX continues to get much
| better. Just not in service of goals that you (or I,
| frankly) embrace.
|
| This isn't the fault of UX as a discipline or UX
| designers generally. Just like a coder intentionally
| optimizing a ratio of negative to positive stories to
| keep you fearful and scrolling, UX designers are driven
| by the same constraints -- the product direction of their
| parent organizations.
|
| Should UX designers individually, or as a discipline,
| rise up in revolt? Exactly as much, or as little, as
| programmers should. We're all in the same boat. We can
| choose to serve the manipulators or not. Trouble is,
| there's a fuckton of money in this manipulation, and you
| don't have to spend much time here on HN to see how
| motivating that is, and the extent to which individuals
| will hold their noses and do what they're told, as long
| as they're motivated richly enough.
| leucineleprec0n wrote:
| Ah shit is Ive really to blame for iOS 7? The OS and
| increasingly MacOS feels so dreary, lacking contrast, etc
| ever since. Animations also never recovered imo
| jdlshore wrote:
| > Almost every piece of software (and hardware) in a
| computer is driven by incremental improvements backed by
| research
|
| Could you please point to the research in support of this
| statement? Specifically, the "almost every" part?
|
| > Where's the research
|
| Do a web search for "human-computer interaction
| research."
| lstamour wrote:
| As others point out, the discipline is called Human-
| Computer Interaction and has a rich history. The best
| example in the field might be work on Fitts' Law, such as
| https://www.yorku.ca/mack/hhci2018.html
|
| For more practical examples of how websites can be
| redesigned through science, though, see
| https://www.nngroup.com/ and other resources online
| regarding scientific study of UI, user experience (UX),
| etc.
| [deleted]
| rangoon626 wrote:
| Yes, but who ever called Classic Mac OS a thoughtless user
| interface? Even when they redid it with Platinum.
|
| It had far more affordances and consideration than even modern
| Mac OS, and it showed by (lack of) this commentary against it.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| > ...yet they're presented as if they're objective truths.
|
| Readability is objective. It can be measured. They keep bending
| themselves backwards to get out of a problem they inflicted
| upon themselves.
|
| A web browser should be readable first.
| defaultname wrote:
| Someone's casual opinion about "readability" is not
| objective. It is the very definition of subjective. I mean,
| if you've been on HN at all you've seen massive debates about
| fonts, colors, contrast, and so on, where people have
| profoundly different opinions about readability.
|
| Run a study and then talk. Otherwise it's just subjective
| observations.
|
| Further, we're talking about page theme spreading to the
| chrome of the browser. It makes the chrome less important
| than the page contents. It seems they're putting
| "readability" focus exactly where it should be.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| > Run a study and then talk.
|
| It has been running for centuries. It's called typography.
| Its rules are not arbitrary and legibility is the most
| important one.
|
| No need for scare quotes around readability. It's a
| science.
|
| There's a latitude of contrast ratio between which human
| eyes can comfortably withstand and discern tones. It varies
| across individuals, of course, but not as much as you might
| think. No human sees ultraviolet, for example. And even if
| you have 20/20 eyesight, you need to design for a much
| wider spectrum of the Bell curve if you care at all about
| accessibility.
|
| You might be interested in checking the history and methods
| behind CIE 1931. Also, "The Elements of Typographic Style"
| is a deep but fascinating book.
| defaultname wrote:
| That is indeed fascinating, but has positively no bearing
| on someone's off the cuff perceived opinion about
| readability.
| willyt wrote:
| Off topic. By the way I think you meant 'throw away' not
| 'tosser' which is British slang insult meaning masturbator.
| It's basically interchangeable with 'wanker'.
| 1_player wrote:
| > Run a study and then talk
|
| Have they? The base of your argument is a classic appeal to
| authority. They're "very proud, considerate, intentional"
| designers so they must be right and everybody else wrong.
|
| Where's the data? Aren't unhappy users valid enough data to
| demonstrate a downgrade in user experience?
| defaultname wrote:
| > They're "very proud, considerate, intentional"
| designers so they must be right and everybody else wrong.
|
| Contriving a straw man to argue a position does no good.
|
| I _specifically_ took issue with claims that it 's
| thoughtless. That in no way says it's right _or_ wrong
| [1], but I 'm extraordinarily certain that a lot of
| people thought long about every detail of this, they
| probably argued and different people had different takes,
| and we can see the results of that process. Trying to
| casually dismiss all of that as thoughtless is gross.
|
| > Aren't unhappy users valid enough data to demonstrate a
| downgrade in user experience?
|
| Unhappy users aren't proof of much at all but that people
| really dislike change, and that you can't please all of
| the people all of the time. The eventual net result is an
| entirely different thing.
|
| And again, the net might be positive and it might be
| negative. I've made zero assessment of that. I happen to
| be a pretty malleable user and I just flow with whatever,
| adapting to whatever various platforms demand I use.
|
| [1] Although notions of right and wrong depend upon the
| inputs to your assessment. e.g. often we'll some users
| feel that a certain function or trait is a first class,
| primary element, while it isn't to others. What is right
| for one can be wrong for another. Seldom is it universal.
| Every design of any complexity is wrong for some subset
| of users.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Nothing is thoughtless, if we're being pedantic assholes
| about the situation who only care about protecting Apple
| from mean words.
|
| For the sake of conversation though, yeah, I'd argue that
| Safari is the most thoughtless among the mainstream
| browsers. Compared to Firefox, Edge, Chrome and even
| Brave or Vivaldi, Safari is a less compatible, less up-
| to-date, less secure and less cared-about experience.
| beebeepka wrote:
| I know exactly what you mean.
|
| Your opinion is objective. Opinions you don't like are
| subjective.
|
| Sorry but this is how I read it. In my late years, there's
| little I fear more than such authoritarian claims.
|
| Not everyone sees things the same way. And I mean that in the
| most literal sense possible
| eddieh wrote:
| You're right. I can not fathom anyone trying to argue that
| readability is subjective. I guess some people will argue any
| point.
| rapind wrote:
| "People who probably put thousands (millions?) multiples of
| "thought" in considering the changes"
|
| In my experience it's usually one person's vision behind major
| design changes (good or bad). It may be "discussed" so long as
| the discussion doesn't deviate from boss's vision (or you're
| not a fit for the project).
| sho wrote:
| One I've learned from grim experience is that most of the
| time, 1 person with a strong vision and the willingness to
| fight for it is better than 10 or more people just kinda
| doing their own thing in their own sandbox. Sure, the former
| might turn out bad. The latter is almost guaranteed to.
| ncann wrote:
| This is kinda like the argument between an authoritative
| government and a democratic one, the former works great
| until it doesn't. When it works, the former is more
| efficient and can get things done much more quickly but
| when things go wrong it can go horribly more wrong as well
| because the checks and balances aren't there.
| rapind wrote:
| I think it's a matter of stakes. In UI design, while the
| risk to the business will vary case by case it's almost
| never as costly as the risk in governing. Committees just
| aren't great at moving fast, and in UI design moving slow
| might be more expensive than moving in the wrong
| direction and learning something.
| grishka wrote:
| A simple question. Why change something that already works for
| everyone? To solve which problem exactly?
|
| I understand redesigning UIs when that redesign affords you
| some new capabilities for new features you want to add. I
| don't, however, understand redesigns that just move things
| around without adding anything new.
|
| Android 12 is the prime example of this right now. Android 11,
| which I currently have on my phone, works fine. Its UI is well
| thought out. It's mature enough. The best thing you could do to
| it is leave it alone. But then someone at Google wanted a
| promotion, which meant redesigning an existing product, and now
| everything is opaque and has huge paddings for no good reason.
| And when they say "material you is customizable", I really hope
| it's so customizable I could just make it look like it did
| before they released this mess.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I have the opposite question: why do people let themselves
| get upset over UI changes? Why don't people seem to take
| pride in their ability to adapt to change?
|
| Change is inevitable. Even if we stipulate that change
| sometimes happens for bad reasons, like someone wanting a
| promotion, it's not like bad reasons are suddenly going to
| disappear. People are still going to want promotions a year
| from now, or 10 years from now.
|
| So designs are going to change. Why not take the approach of
| "let's see how I can adapt to this"?
| aniforprez wrote:
| If changes are going to actively hamper use, why wouldn't
| people get worked up? This very article is a prime example
| of bad design affecting usability. Same with what I've seen
| of Android 12. Huge quick shortcut buttons that take up
| half the screen in the notification shade. 2 toggles where
| now I have 5. This is terrible. "live with it"? No
| dmitriid wrote:
| > Why not take the approach of "let's see how I can adapt
| to this"?
|
| Our computers (and phones) are not fashion. They are
| _tools_ , they are _commoditized_.
|
| Let's change everything every two years: you screws and
| screwdrivers, controls in your car (with everyting going
| touchscreen, that's exactly what we'll soon get), buttons
| in your elevators, plane controls, heart monitors...
|
| See, how stupid "let's wait and adapt to this" sounds?
| lowercased wrote:
| > So designs are going to change. Why not take the approach
| of "let's see how I can adapt to this"?
|
| Because there's huge costs for everyone involved...?
|
| "let's see how I can adapt to this"... Across how many
| devices? If a school lab updates, but I don't... I know
| have to learn something new when it's probably not
| necessary. If I update, and the school lab didn't... will
| my stuff be compatible? If I send a document to 'version
| Y', will I still be able to use it in my own local previous
| 'version X'?
|
| If I'm a business, how do I support X changes across
| multiple customer bases? And for how long? I have support
| people to train to answer every stupid question from people
| who can't find ABC menu item any more because it's now
| rendered as 'abc' in a different menu area.
|
| In MANY cases, there are compounded, massive costs to
| seemingly small/trivial/design changes.
| grishka wrote:
| > why do people let themselves get upset over UI changes?
|
| Because a UI is a tool I use to get something done. I don't
| like when the thing I've been using intuitively gets
| changed so I have to learn to use it again. It's a tool.
| It's not an art piece.
|
| > Why don't people seem to take pride in their ability to
| adapt to change?
|
| Because this adaptation doesn't make their lives any
| better. It's change for the sake of change. It's like
| weather, except weather isn't quite controllable, but these
| changes are deliberately introduced by other people to mess
| with you for no good reason.
|
| > Change is inevitable.
|
| Progress is inevitable. Moving things around isn't
| progress. Progress implies adding something.
|
| > Even if we stipulate that change sometimes happens for
| bad reasons, like someone wanting a promotion
|
| The incentive structure in most IT companies is wildly
| wrong, I'll say that. No one at Google got promoted for
| maintaining an existing product because afaik promotion
| requires completing a "big project". So the easiest "big
| project" is a UI redesign. The second easiest is apparently
| an instant messaging app.
|
| > Why not take the approach of "let's see how I can adapt
| to this"?
|
| Let's see. I adapted to this by avoiding installing any
| major updates unless absolutely necessary. Security patches
| are fine tho.
| leucineleprec0n wrote:
| RE google; I can't remember who here stated otherwise but
| I believe that promotion policy (unspoken or otherwise)
| is no longer in effect and the rot has... presumably a
| different antecedent if we accept the premise anyways
| dunnevens wrote:
| A couple of reasons. First of all, the UI is just a means
| to an end. If it changes just for the sake of re-arranging,
| then people have to put in more effort to accomplish the
| same thing they were doing before. Sure, most people will
| eventually adapt. But, still feels like a waste of time
| when the updates offer no real increase to functionality,
| and sometimes seem to reduce it.
|
| Secondly, the complaints come because, for many of us, our
| computers and phones feel like an extension of our offices
| and homes. We're staring at these screens for the majority
| of waking hours. The UI is basically part of the furniture.
| Many people would feel resentful if their chairs, couches,
| and doorknobs were changed without permission every year as
| part of some update. They're going to have similar feelings
| about the electronic portions of their spaces.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| It's fairly common because it's commonly true; people don't
| like the changes for good reasons. Actual innovations in design
| are fine, but too often changes to user interfaces are
| arbitrary or are a response to the latest fad or some bright
| idea marketing or management cooked up.
|
| There is a strong argument for user interface stability. People
| don't just learn user interfaces, they seep into people's
| unconscious and muscle memory. It can take a while to learn the
| idiosyncrasies of a user interface and making changes should
| have a string justification.
|
| It should be noted that people who are paid to design user
| interfaces are not paid to use them. Their incentives are to
| create and tinker. This is a disincentive to do what is often
| needed: nothing or very slow change.
| oivey wrote:
| I think the role of the aesthetic of a product is a bit under
| appreciated. If Safari was exactly as functional but still
| looked like Netscape navigator, it would negatively impact
| people's opinion of the browser.
|
| It's just like the idea that you first eat with your eyes.
| For example, eggs with yellow yolks and orange yolks taste
| the same in blinded tests, but when people can see the eggs
| they usually go for the orange ones. Periodic UI design
| updates are needed so that people don't associate a dated GUI
| with a dated product.
| [deleted]
| irrational wrote:
| This. I work on a website where a new ui was rolled out every
| 2 years? Why? We (the developers) finally figured out it was
| because it gave the business people work to do that was more
| interesting than what they were really supposed to be doing.
| They got to go to all these catered meetings with 3rd party
| design consultants. They got to report to their higher ups
| that they were doing all this very important work. And every
| 2 years they could roll out the new ui to great fanfare while
| patting each other on the backs. It had absolutely nothing to
| do with improving the experience for our customers.
|
| The worst part was, often functionality that was well loved
| was scraped because there wasn't time to work it into this
| redesign. It turned out they would do that on purpose so
| people would complain so they could go to their higher ups
| with complaints in hand to justify budget money for a new
| round of ui design work. Rinse repeat.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| > We (the developers) finally figured out it was because it
| gave the business people work to do that was more
| interesting than what they were really supposed to be
| doing.
|
| Did you get them to confirm this hypothesis? Or did you
| just figure it out by deduction and projection?
|
| This is an honest question. I work on both sides - dev and
| design, and so am privy of the driving forces behind the
| projects.
|
| Sometimes they could include personal agendas but are
| almost never limited to those.
|
| And I have had cases where I had to ask questions in
| confidence to uncover the political forces.
|
| Have you had the opportunity to ask such questions and
| confirm your suspicions?
| ryanSrich wrote:
| Well when you objectively make a product not only worse to use,
| but worse to look at, where's the benefit?
|
| Also, why does it matter how much time, money, brain power they
| spent on the changes? The only thing that matters is the
| outcome.
| [deleted]
| coliveira wrote:
| Multiple people putting several hours of though behind a
| feature is what we call design by committee. It doesn't matter
| how much time was spent if the committee is not capable of
| finding a unified direction to the proposed changes.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| This post makes a lot of good points, which I agree with
| strongly. However:
|
| > In other words, what a browser needs is horizontal breathing
| room, instead we have Apple doing things backwards
|
| I disagree with this in general. Which I'm sure is the general
| opinion of browser developers. We often add extra whitespace to
| the horizontal margin to assist reading.
|
| I think the issue is that we are so used to toolbars on the top
| of the window, we don't know how to squish it all in there.
| yxhuvud wrote:
| Then don't put it there in the first place.
|
| Instead, take a clue from tree style tabs and put the tab bar
| on the left side instead. I'm sure designers with proper buy in
| from stake holders can make it look less horrible but stay
| usable.
| heurisko wrote:
| On the subject of user interface messes, I recently switched away
| from Chrome on Android to Firefox, solely because of the "tab
| groups" feature.
|
| I usually can live with UI changes, but reading the reviews of
| Chrome on the Google store, and the Chrome subreddit, it seems
| I'm not alone in disliking this change.
| heavymark wrote:
| I love Apple and Safari and frequently provide bug reports to
| WebKit but I also absolutely hate the new safari and hope they
| reconsider it. I don't mind change that is for the better and
| simply requires time to change muscle memory but this requires
| that and the end result is more clicks to do things, fewer static
| targets and the supposive benefits aren't benefits for me at
| least. I find it most awful on iOS. The WebKit team is great and
| have to assume this direction to make the chrome of the app even
| smaller came from higher up. Hopefully more public backlash when
| the public betas come out so apple can rethink it. At the end of
| the day it's still better than the alternatives for my use cases
| but hate that for me it's a worse experience for something I use
| more than any other app.
| dwaite wrote:
| Browser makers are always doing aggressive (and thus
| questionable) things with the UX, partly because the chrome is
| the only part which is under their control (and not the content).
|
| The two most questionable decisions I find in the latest Safari
| UX are:
|
| - A focused tab goes from the title to the address: this means
| you cannot see the title of the page you are on, and that tabs
| change relative positions depending on focus. This is
| unfortunately a hard problem, because users/designers expect a
| signal that you are on the correct site to prevent phishing -
| adding a disclosure field for viewing/entering the address
| anchored to the left is insufficient.
|
| - Tab Pinning is still not supported on ios/iPadOS, and since tab
| groups are synchronized they cannot be pinned. Pinning adds some
| really nice behaviors for curation, so the whole tab group
| feature feels less useful than it could be.
| yoz-y wrote:
| This weird user interface decisions also completely negate all
| that talk about speed. On iOS you now have to tap through a
| submenu with animations to do anything. (Share, Private Mode,
| Reading list...) the tab groups are useless as they are also
| hidden behind more taps (on Mac having multiple windows makes way
| more sense anyways, maybe let people name those or somehow see
| them grouped in the current open pages view on the bottom). Every
| action now feels slower, because even if the page loads 10ms
| faster than in another browser, any useful interaction will end
| up in hundreds of milliseconds of animations.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| Does the "reduce animations" accessibility toggle help at all
| here?
| contriban wrote:
| I found that to just change the animations to fade instead of
| scale/pan. The duration is unaffected, it just makes it
| flatter and uglier. I wonder how fast things would feel if
| you could disable all animations, Windows XP style.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Yes! I was shocked this setting doesn't allow me to
| instantly move around views in iOS!
|
| There's no way in iOS anymore to avoid all of the weird
| transition animations. Reduce motion hardly does anything
| at all anymore.
|
| In fact, it's even more jarring than with animations.
| [deleted]
| armchairhacker wrote:
| Lots of people saying that they like the new Safari, and lots
| saying that it sucks.
|
| This is why we need customizable UI. Everyone's laptop is
| different and everyone's preference is different. Firefox suffers
| from a similar issue. Of course more customizable UI isn't an
| easy task, but it would probably be good in the long run to
| develop a more customizable general-purpose GUI framework.
| throwzaway20102 wrote:
| Love the updates to Safari. Glad to see Apple aggressively trying
| to improve the core UX of what a browser is instead of just
| shoving extensions and ads in.
|
| More of this please, Apple!
| seumars wrote:
| I think if you're the type of person who has dozens of tabs open
| in a single window you're doing it wrong anyway.
| dashwin wrote:
| For tabs, I beg to disagree -- tabs have been somewhat
| meaningless to me when pinch to "expose" was introduced. It works
| really well, I can search through my tabs if I have a ton of them
| as well.
|
| For share being buried, I'd have to agree. It's the one thing I
| use most and we end up having to poke more at our screens to do
| so.
|
| That said, it's no means perfect. Some features I want to see in
| Safari are: - multiple profiles (work, personal etc.) ideally
| integrated with this new Focus concept that the new OS introduces
| - grouping: create, manage and switch tab groups - bring back the
| single click share button
| logbiscuitswave wrote:
| > It seems as if the people in the design team are all working
| exclusively on 32-inch Apple XDR Pro Displays.
|
| Makes me think of the complaints in video game text over the past
| few years and how it had become so small as to be nearly
| unreadable on normal TVs at normal viewing distances. The natural
| assumption here is that the game devs were doing all their work
| inches away from large fancy monitors not thinking of the so-
| called 10' experience most people use to consume the content.
|
| At least many console games now have text size sliders (with
| varying levels of usefulness).
|
| https://kotaku.com/the-year-in-tiny-video-game-text-2019-184...
| zamadatix wrote:
| The majority of these are better explained as "PC game ported
| to console". The same problem has long existed in reverse,
| console game ported to PC with enormous UI.
|
| There are a vanishingly small number of games that actually do
| this properly - a scalable UI that has some good default
| assumption for the platform it is currently on. Of course games
| rarely make significantly more money because the text is
| perfectly sized vs the 1,000 other things that are competing to
| get done before the release date.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| Nah. Console exclusives have had this problem for a while
| too. It was really dreadful on 360 where some devs assumed
| everybody played on HDTVs despite the console supposed to be
| SD friendly as well. Some text was literally unreadable in
| Mass Effect on my 20" CRT TV at ANY distance and was just
| barely readable on the 20" 480p LCD I was able to upgrade to
| a little later.
| qaq wrote:
| Teams grow they need things to do, managers need to justify
| increasing head count and love redesigns and rebrandings ... I
| think we are at a point where there is non-triivial size weather
| app team @ Apple
| rnantes wrote:
| Tabs are imperative to web productivity.
|
| On Google Chrome since tabs are on their own row at the top of
| the window and maintain their size and position you can fling
| your mouse to the top of the screen easily hit them. On Safari
| since the address bar expands from the active tab, the size and
| position of the tabs are drastically changing. This makes
| selecting a tab more difficult. Additionally, since the size the
| address bar is wider the distance your mouse has to travel to
| select the neighbouring tab increases.
|
| In the end this leads to more effort and bad ergonomics. I would
| love it if they just had the tabs on one row and address bar one
| row, until then I will stick with chrome on the desktop.
| CPLNTN wrote:
| If productivity is that much the problem, just use shortcuts.
| hu3 wrote:
| Shortcuts are orthogonal to UI. They're used as a bypass.
|
| We shouldn't neglect UI productivity just because there are
| shortcuts.
| macspoofing wrote:
| So Apple was inspired by the IE address bar / tab layout. Nice to
| see Apple preserve history ... just as IE is going EOL.
| tosh wrote:
| I love that Safari 15 uses less vertical space (more space for
| the website!).
|
| The nav bar currently feels a bit buggy but it isn't released
| yet.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Does Safari 15 not do that thing like Mobile Safari where when
| you scroll the entire address bar goes away?
|
| I feel like that should definitely be a thing. The 13-inch
| MacBook Pros of today seem oddly space constrained compared to
| the non-Retina MacBook Air I used years ago. But maybe I'm wrong.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| I vehemently disagree that vertical space used is negligible. Due
| to standard aspect ratios, the vertical space of the display is
| at a premium. 1920*1080 means you have 840 less vertical pixels
| than horizontal - it makes a lot of sense to me to try to reclaim
| some of that space for actual content instead of widgets.
| pourred wrote:
| Yet one obvious UI change on Big Sur is they added pointless
| padding to windows and menus.
| bluthru wrote:
| The top part of Safari's UI (above the tabs) is about 54
| points. There's no reason for it to be above 44 and it could
| be even less.
| reflectiv wrote:
| This is basically what I tell people when they ask me why I put
| my start menu and task bar on the left side of the screen.
| bscphil wrote:
| Exactly. Which to me is why the parent complaint is a bit
| silly. If vertical space is at such a premium on Mac laptops
| supposedly, why then does the default Apple UI [1] consume
| such an enormous amount of vertical space? This is many, many
| pixels more space than on Windows, where you only have the
| taskbar at the bottom. Apple's dock is much larger than the
| taskbar, in addition to having a global bar on the top!
|
| So I conclude that Apple's designers are in fact _not_
| attempting to maximize vertical space, or at least that to
| the extent they do care about this, they 're willing to make
| absurd compromises in apps like Safari while not fixing the
| glaring issue with the overall UI.
|
| [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/MacOS_Mont
| ere...
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| Wow. I hadn't thought of it this way, and I even go as far as
| using a second monitor in portrait mode.
| beebeepka wrote:
| I have been doing this ever since 16:9 became a thing, and
| have converted several people to this simple solution.
|
| Canonical had the right idea with Unity which not many
| people are willing to acknowledge
| ziml77 wrote:
| I find that horizontal space to many times be more
| constrained. If I toss and IDE and browser window side-by-
| side so I can code while looking at docs I need to at least
| close the vertical tabs on my browser to have a sane amount
| of space left for content. Usually also collapse one of the
| sidebars in the IDE to get a decent width for the code.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| Clearly horizontal space is going to be more constrained
| than vertical space if you put two windows next to each
| other horizontally, as you're going from 16:9 to 8:9. But
| if you stacked them vertically, well obviously vertical
| space would be even more constrained than that, to the
| point where it's so useless you don't even think about
| doing it. So this is an argument for vertical space being
| more scarce than horizontal space actually.
| maxwell wrote:
| You don't hide the start menu and task bar?
| zamadatix wrote:
| A lot get frustrated with the slide but if you disable
| animations the autohide becomes instant too.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| For what it's worth, you don't need to disable all
| animations to stop this, just the menu ones.
|
| https://superuser.com/a/1644831
| zamadatix wrote:
| That's actually a fantastic tip, thanks!
| slver wrote:
| Hiding it usually works.
|
| Unfortunately on Windows there's this annoying slide-out
| animation that slows you down. It happens even if you
| disable UI animation.
|
| On top of that sometimes the bar doesn't show up at all
| when specific windows are maximized. Which means you need
| to press the start button to get it out.
|
| At some point one figures "f this shit, just toggle off
| auto-hide".
|
| I do autohide in macOS on laptops tho.
| [deleted]
| sergiomattei wrote:
| On a MBP 13 inch, vertical space like this is a premium as
| well.
| barrkel wrote:
| This is why tree-style tabs make sense. It puts the tabs on a
| sidebar, where their content can be read, and leaves maximum
| vertical space for the actual page content.
| yxhuvud wrote:
| Which is why it makes it so strange that no browser designers
| seem to get that the way to go is to stack tabs in a vertical
| list instead of horizontally. It would use more space but the
| space is in less demand so it wouldn't matter anyhow.
|
| So until the browser designers get a clue I will be stuck with
| Firefox and the Treestyle tabs plugin which is the least
| horrible solution for people that use a lot of tabs.
| seritools wrote:
| I know of at least Edge and Vivaldi that do it.
|
| Granted, it seems that nobody at the Edge team thought of
| actually giving the vertical space used by the horizontal tab
| bar _back_ once you flip to vertical tabs mode, but the
| feature itself is there.
| techpression wrote:
| Vivaldi does what you're asking for, natively without
| plugins.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I've tried tree style tabs a few times but it always ends up
| being too much.
|
| The implementations of vertical tabs I've liked best so far
| are OmniWeb's (perhaps one of the original vertical tab
| browsers), Edge's, and Firefox with Tab Center Redux and
| custom CSS to hide Firefox's frustrating mandatory sidebar
| header.
| freediver wrote:
| If you are on Mac and want to try a new WebKit based browser,
| Orion comes with native vertical tabs.
|
| https://browser.kagi.com
| ksec wrote:
| I dont agree with getting rid of "widget", but I do agree
| vertical space are very limited. Your example of 1080P will be
| on a 16:9 Screen or iMac. MacBook uses 16:10, but even that,
| vertical space are still at premium. Once you have Dock at the
| bottom, and all web design has another layer of navigation at
| the top, you are quickly looking at 480 out of 1600 gone [1].
| That is 30% of my vertical screen space. Leaving effectively
| 2560 x 1120 for content at Aspect Ratio of ~21:9 ultra wide.
|
| I would have used Full Screen Option if I could have Tab Bar
| showing instead of Address bar + Tab Bar. And Safari for some
| reason has strange GPU / CPU usage problem with full screen
| usage which hasn't been addressed for years.
|
| May be instead of software design, hardware should have adopted
| to it. Microsoft Surface Laptop has a 3:2 Aspect Ratio. On the
| same MacBook Pro 13.3", that would have been an additional 120
| pixel.
|
| Another point worth mentioning, the Big Sur redesign actually
| have the Safari ( and macOS )Toolbar "thicker" as in taking
| more vertical space.
|
| [1] I tend to hide the Dock Bar, without the Dock it is only
| 340 of vertical space.
| zamadatix wrote:
| More than aspect ratio or physical pixels the real metric is
| "inches of screen space". You can put 8k in a 13" laptop but
| if you want to read the window title and url bar and dock
| you're still eating the same amount of physical real estate
| as if it were a 1080p laptop. You can change the aspect ratio
| sure but outside of desktop setups the space constraint is
| already in depth so all you're doing is chopping off width
| that wasn't a problem while keeping the same depth profile.
| I.e. very few are buying a 13" laptop because 15" is too wide
| rather than too deep.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| >1920*1080
|
| Worse than that, high end PCs are going to ultrawide monitors.
| I'm on 3440x1440 right now, and 3840x1200/5120x1440 panels are
| dropping in price.
|
| Of course, you almost never fullscreen a browser window on a
| monitor like that, but it is what the OS would default to.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Right, everyone had the exactly opposite complaint about
| Firefox.
|
| Safari 15's design is so odd I'll have no idea what to make of
| it until I can actually test it out.
| mahoho wrote:
| But the tradeoff here isn't between a few dozen pixels
| vertically and a few dozen horizontally. It's 28 vertical
| pixels in exchange for cutting the horizontal space for the
| address bar and tab bar each _in half_ , roughly.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| Who really needs an address bar spanning the _entire_ width
| of their screen? If you run into an URL that long then it 's
| highly unlikely to contain useful information anyway. Or do
| you regularly notice yourself scanning through 400 characters
| of query string gibberish and thinking "that information was
| so useful that I _always_ need _all of it_ on screen "?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Is there a browser where the address bar spans the entire
| width of their screen? I've got FF Dev on Mac right now -
| about 60% of the screen eyeballing it. Have managed not to
| install Chrome on this machine and have to give it back in
| a couple weeks so I don't intend to install it if I can
| help it but from what I can recall it's not 100% either.
| Where is this entire width of the screen thing coming from?
| shinycode wrote:
| I agree, even in dev situation I copy paste the url
| elsewhere to read/work on it. It's a smart move to shrink
| the address bar like that.
| aniforprez wrote:
| You don't. But why use that space to put the tab bar which
| DOES require the entire width? Chrome's and Firefox's
| compromise seems good enough where they stuff everything
| else to the right and left of the address bar except tabs.
| This Safari change is just awful
| hultner wrote:
| Chrome is horrible when you've got more then a few tabs
| since each tab just shrinks to a tiny unrecognizable
| notch, Safaris approach of scrolling in the tab bar is
| vastly superior in my opinion and makes the area much
| more useful even if it's smaller. And this is without
| considering the new tab groups. I never really liked
| chromes tab-bar.
| xvector wrote:
| Hard disagree. The Safari change is a godsend for someone
| with a small laptop display. Every bit of space I can
| reclaim helps.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| As someone else with a small laptop display, I run
| everything in fullscreen mode, and toggle out whenever I
| need to use the controls. If you're hiding the controls
| anyway, why not just use fullscreen mode? Then, when you
| want the controls, you don't need to have them hidden in
| a bunch of layers, they can just all be there.
|
| Hey, whatever if we just made all the browser controls a
| modal or fullscreen context of it's own?
| xvector wrote:
| You can't always use full screen, often you need to have
| multiple windows open next to each other, and that's
| where minimizing chrome is especially important, because
| your windows are smaller now but the size of the chrome
| remains the same.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Multiple address and tab bars next to each other doesn't
| work well on a small laptop. Separating them works much
| better.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| Tab groups are Apple's solution to having less space for
| tabs. As a casual Tree Style Tabs user I can see them
| really working better than one giant mess of tabs.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Honest question. How are people using tabs such that they
| would want to organise them? Most of my tabs have
| lifetimes of seconds to minutes and there is no order in
| the chaos to be found.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| I keep 2 browser windows, each with 10+ tabs. One is
| those with short lifetimes, as you mention. The other is
| a "reminder list" of things I want to defer for a few
| hours.
| matwood wrote:
| I find how people use tabs a lot like how people use
| Excel. Excel is super flexible with thousands of
| features, but people only use a few of them. The rub is
| each person uses a different few. Tabs are similar. They
| are a flexible tool and people design personal workflows
| around them.
|
| How I use tabs is probably nothing like how you use tabs
| or another random person uses them. I'm actually
| fascinated how people design their own workflows in this
| way. Anytime I see someone's screen I end up with a ton
| of questions asking 'why'.
| curun1r wrote:
| I'm on chrome, but I'm using them through a simple
| development extension I wrote which examines the url of
| ungrouped tabs and adds matching tabs to a few
| predetermined groups that I've hard-coded into the
| JavaScript. It was a quick and dirty hack that took me
| about 30 min to setup, but it's made the tab grouping
| functionality so much more useful.
|
| I'm toying with the idea of adding an options page so
| that I could release it to the chrome store, but I hate
| UI work, so I haven't gotten around to that yet.
| Bud wrote:
| Things like the tab bar and the reload button are not mere
| "widgets"; they are the core UI elements. They are the single
| most important part of the app. This is simply a bad call.
|
| I'm all for saving vertical space whenever possible. But this
| is a bad call.
| shinycode wrote:
| I CMD+R every time and I guess for the amount of time people
| reload it's not costly to learn it ...
| montroser wrote:
| The single most important part of the app is the content.
|
| I would be interested to see a version where the tabs and url
| bar roll up to one line if you have the space (few tabs,
| large monitor), but wrap to two if you don't (lots of tabs,
| small monitor).
| thirdlamp wrote:
| I've been using a vertical tab bar on the left in Firefox
| for a while, offers many tabs and lots of vertical space
| Asmod4n wrote:
| Can't remember the Mac OS X Release when Apple removed the
| dedicated reload button from Safari. Was it 10.6?
| martimarkov wrote:
| I'm on Big Sur and have it on my Safari?
| jdmg94 wrote:
| I've been using iOS15 beta on my iDevices and tab groups has been
| a life-saver. If you had. 18 tabs open at any time like the
| author here said now you can separate them through tab groups
| that will sync in between devices, so I can have a group for my
| guitar tabs and a group for all my tech stuff, that leaves the
| default view clear if I want to start going into a new rabbit-
| hole
| hu3 wrote:
| Tab groups are great. Chrome introduced them a while ago and
| I've been using ever since.
|
| Two groups is all I need: Work and Personal. Tabs not in these
| groups are temporay and are closed once I'm done.
| david-cako wrote:
| For some time now, I've been using a CSS mod for Firefox to put
| the window controls on the same row as the navigation buttons and
| address bar, and I use the Tree Tabs extension to get a vertical
| tab bar on the right, which I overlap with VS Code's file
| navigation so that the meat of both apps are in view even if they
| are overlapping.
|
| At some point, an update made the window controls disappear. I
| still haven't fixed it, but I like my toolbar being as small as
| possible to give me more vertical screen real estate. I don't
| mind this change to Safari tbh. A big draw of Macs is also the
| 16:10 aspect ratio.
| tofukid wrote:
| What happens with background images or gradients and the page
| bleed effect? Does Safari add additional padding to the top of
| the page to start top aligned background images from outside the
| viewport?
|
| Consistency is _the_ most important principle of good user
| interfaces. At first glance, changing the color of the same
| interface controls when switching pages seems like it would be
| very jarring.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| What's the recommended way to move a window that has no remaining
| title bar? (Honest question, not specific to Safari.) Or am I
| supposed to only use full-screen windows now?
| chadlavi wrote:
| the entire top bar area can be grabbed to drag the window
| around. Just click and hold anywhere that isn't a button or tab
| (including between and just below the tabs).
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Ok, but the entire top row is now 90% buttons, tabs, and
| address-bar. Leaving me to struggle with the trackpad to
| position the mouse on a tiny sliver of border. Is there a
| keyboard modifier for move-mode?
| kbrose wrote:
| There is, but it's disabled by default. Use
| defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture -bool true
|
| Then restart, and now while holding Ctrl-[?] you can click
| and drag _anywhere_ on the window to move it.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Is there a way to downgrade to an earlier safari version? I'm
| about to get a new macbook, and I'm not particularly looking
| forward to having to deal with these UI changes ...
| axelonet wrote:
| You can not use safari. Chrome for example mostly stays the
| same unless they feel compelled with these Apple UI changes
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Firefox? Waterfox? Brave? Edge?
| [deleted]
| justshowpost wrote:
| Seems like the author is so used to the current design language,
| that they are vehemently opposed to any change.
|
| I personally like that Apple attempts to make websites feel more
| like applications by making the browser disappear.
|
| Websites have evolved to becoming essentially applications that
| can run on any platform. And with WASM this is only getting
| better. This is a great thing!
|
| Do applications have a permanent bookmarks bar, a reload button,
| a URL bar? No. It's all built into the OS. When you want to open
| an application, you search in the Dock or in Spotlight. When an
| application freezes, you force quit and reopen it. I can imagine
| how Apple in the future integrates the Safari URL bar into
| Spotlight search. On iOS this is at least partly possible
| already. Websites become more and more applications.
| breeny592 wrote:
| > I personally like that Apple attempts to make websites feel
| more like applications by making the browser disappear.
|
| Now if they could provide a stable platform like they do for
| their applications versus the pain and edge cases Safari almost
| always introduces (especially the mobile implementations). I
| know its not a flashy thing but one WWDC it'd be great if they
| came out and said how many nearly decade old bugs have been
| addressed rather than a UI uplift - the cynic in me assumes a
| "redesigned" app is going to be less, not more stable.
| [deleted]
| threeseed wrote:
| > Two things any user, no matter their tech-savviness, has needed
| in a browser. A wide Address bar to see exactly where they are,
| which webpage it's loaded, the whole URL
|
| This is clearly wrong and brings the judgement of the author into
| question.
|
| People care that they are on "Facebook", "Google", "Youtube".
| They are not remembering that a stupid cat video belongs to URL:
| ?v=X2KsttcwC04
| rswail wrote:
| Oh man, you had a classic opportunity, surely you should have
| quoted ?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
| ballballball wrote:
| That's like... just your opinion man. Maybe some people like to
| see the whole URL. I kinda do. There might be others.
| threeseed wrote:
| I take it you skipped past the, "any user, no matter their
| tech-savviness" part.
| Retr0id wrote:
| 99% of HN users want to see the full URL, myself included.
|
| However, we only care because we know what a URL is, and what
| the different components mean.
|
| The _average_ user doesn 't understand the intricacies of
| URLs, nor should they have to. Parsing URLs unambiguously is
| hard even for programmers, and has been the source of
| numerous security vulnerabilities.
|
| I think there should always be an option to show the full URL
| bar, but I can't really argue for it being the default
| behavior anymore.
| mathewsanders wrote:
| I was looking forward to a good cat video but just got the
| message "This video is unavailable." What a tease!
| bovine3dom wrote:
| It's especially jarring combined with the next point:
|
| "A proper Tab bar, with as much horizontal space as possible,
| to be able to open a lot of tabs and read at least a small part
| of their titles."
|
| Which suggests ignorance of vertical tabs.
|
| I'm wondering if the author hasn't spent much time with the
| long tail of tech-savvy users. The emphasis added to "any" is
| unfortunate.
|
| A fair chunk of Tridactyl users hide the address bar; I find I
| very rarely need to know that information.
| bluedino wrote:
| Surprised browsers haven't just removed the address bar, it's
| almost useless now.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| I'm very concerned about Apple's direction in UX.
|
| Big Sur's dialog boxes, menus, notifications are a mess. And now
| this Safari comical UI. Every single change has been for the
| worse.
|
| Whoever is in charge of this, please, listen to feedback and
| change course. This is a disaster.
| leucineleprec0n wrote:
| The utter lack of contrast, horrible font antics, and weird
| obsession with tiny icons drives me mad
| shinycode wrote:
| I actually like this change. I've been using software for more
| than 25 years so I've lived the evolution of UI a bit and
| sometimes we feel that it's a regression. But after a period of
| transition every time I liked the product more.
|
| << The familiar is comfortable; change is upsetting >>.
|
| I can't imagine being stuck with a Windows XP style for ever I
| can't even believe having used it so many years and looking
| back it's a disaster but back then people loved it and
| complained on every single update.
|
| So nothing new here ...
| chadlavi wrote:
| I don't mind it on macOS because of keyboard shortcuts, but I
| desperately want my refresh and share buttons back in the iOS
| version of Safari. Pull down to refresh is great if you're
| already at the top of the page, but when you're at the bottom you
| have to open a menu just to refresh the page?
|
| Overall though I think the new look is fine, and the author is
| being a real disagreeable crank about the inevitable merging of
| iOS/macOS aesthetics.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > inevitable merging of iOS/macOS aesthetics
|
| Also known as: "The day I dump macOS for Windows." I feel it
| coming. One thing that's kept me from getting an M1 Mac is that
| I'd have to run Big Sur. Given that Apple is continuing in this
| dumb direction my 2015 MacBook Pro running Mojave might,
| indeed, be the last Mac I ever own.
|
| It's too bad too. With the M1 macs they had _finally_ fixed the
| keyboards.
| [deleted]
| alanbernstein wrote:
| Why do browser updates keep fucking with the basic interface
| design? None of these changes are ever necessary.
|
| If designers need to justify their jobs, fine. They should design
| the interface layout with modular components that can be entirely
| customized by the user.
|
| IMO no user should ever be forced to use designs that are the
| product of meaningless fads in the design world.
| xvector wrote:
| I would argue that the changes are 'necessary' as they make the
| browsing experience much nicer, especially on laptops.
| lytedev wrote:
| Browsers like this exist, but require configuration you're
| probably not willing to set up. If that's the case, then
| perhaps it's safe to say that most people just don't care
| enough.
| nxc18 wrote:
| Toolbars in mac apps tend to be really good about this. I
| didn't realize (coming from Windows) that many apps (Notes,
| Safari, Mail, Finder, others) are using the built-in toolbar
| system, which gives you a very large degree of customization.
| That experience seems to be the default, and even third-party
| apps like Fork often use it.
|
| You can see it in this article:
| https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/16/safari-in-macos-monterey-what...
| (image: https://9to5mac.com/wp-
| content/uploads/sites/6/2021/06/how-s...)
|
| Hopefully, they add back some of the missing customization
| options in a later release.
| nlitened wrote:
| From what I understand, the question is similar to "why do
| developers keep inventing new frameworks and new programming
| languages?"
|
| Maybe developers are justifying their jobs. Maybe younger
| developers are excited about ditching the old crufty frameworks
| and languages, and exploring something new. Maybe every 10
| years they reinvent the old wheels, and older developers are
| grumpy that the change was not needed in the first place.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| alanbernstein wrote:
| Creating _new browsers_ doesn 't bother me at all. I think
| the appropriate analogy is something closer to changing the
| spelling of a language's keywords arbitrarily. Change for the
| sake of change, which is easy enough to adjust to, but
| introduces a transition period that costs time, for no good
| reason.
|
| The backward compatibility effects aren't quite as bad in the
| browser context... except when the plugin API is affected.
| andai wrote:
| > While you're there, take a look at how Vivaldi tackles the 'too
| many tabs' problem. Spoiler: by adding a second Tab bar.
|
| On the subject of optimal use of horizontal/vertical screen
| space:
|
| Vivaldi's killer feature is native support for vertical tabs,
| which is a better solution both for large number of tabs and for
| being able to read their titles easily.
|
| If memory serves me, it also supports a tab-tree, ie. each tab's
| children are indented under it, which is a really cool way to
| browse.
|
| You with tree-style tabs you can see where everything _came_
| from, instead of just throwing it in a big pile.
| tacotacotaco wrote:
| Apple's design team must be fans of Internet Explorer 11.
| Exuma wrote:
| Why can't they fix searching in iMessages. Telegraph does it
| perfectly. Just #$%^ing fix it.
| api wrote:
| I have to admit I don't hate the Safari image he's picking on,
| but it's not great. It's a big shrug.
|
| This line is gold though:
|
| "Going through Big Sur's user interface with a fine-tooth comb
| reveals arbitrary design decisions that prioritise looks over
| function, and therefore reflect an un-learning of tried-and-true
| user interface and usability mechanics that used to make for a
| seamless, thoughtful, enjoyable Mac experience."
|
| Cross out "Mac" at the end and it applies even more to Windows
| than to the Mac. This lack of unified conceptual design, combined
| with a mindless ape-ing of mobile interfaces on larger machines
| with large screens and keyboards, describes the whole UI
| regression trend of the past 10-15 years. We went from thought-
| out utilitarian UIs with consistency to... a shitpile of random
| design choices made in isolation. Windows is by far the worst
| offender here, but Mac has been moving in the wrong direction too
| for a while.
|
| A desktop is not a phone any more than a tractor is a car. Yes
| desktops and phones have similar chips in them, but their role
| and use case in the larger ecosystem is very different.
|
| Desktop/laptop isn't dead either. There are many more PC machines
| today than there were in the 1990s at the height of the original
| "PC era." There are just _even more_ phones and tablets (and IoT
| devices, and voice assistants, and smart cars, and...), and
| globally the PC 's _percentage_ of the market has declined quite
| a bit. In absolute terms the ecosystem is larger than ever and
| these machines are used to create virtually everything in our
| world.
| rewgs wrote:
| This change to me feels very touch-oriented.
|
| If you're touching a standard browser's URL bar, you might touch
| a tab instead (and vice-versa). But if you put them on the same
| horizontal plane, this problem is solved.
|
| And from a touch perspective, the URL bar has a ton of wasted
| space; you don't need more than the length of your average URL as
| a touch target, so all the horizontal space that comes after it
| is essentially unused.
|
| I think this is yet another way in which Apple is preparing to
| make macOS touch-enabled.
| augstein wrote:
| Honestly, as a macOS power user, I love the new approach Apple is
| taking with Safari.
|
| More vertical space is a win, especially with those wide screen
| displays that are getting more popular and lets be honest:
| Actions like reloading are best done by using keyboard shortcuts
| anyway, so having a more minimal UI is a win in my book.
|
| The new feature, where Safari's app chrome changes colour by
| taking the accent colour of the currently loaded website is just
| awesome and really brings the website you are currently visiting
| up one level closer.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-06-19 23:00 UTC)