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Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

morrick.me

171–180 of 374 posts

Re: Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has increasingly delivered “looks good, feels bad” design since the Jobs era, and I suspect this is organizationally endemic.

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)

Isn't Mac OS X solidly in the Jobs era?

Re: Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

#172

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.

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.

Re: Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

#173
post #14

This weird user interface décisions 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…

Does the “reduce animations” accessibility toggle help at all here?

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.

Re: Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

#174

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.

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…

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.

Re: Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bullshi…

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.

Poor analogy. A better one for clothing would be to remove the button and zipper from pants for a cleaner look.

Re: Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

#176

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.

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…

can you search your book marks? And their content? I need that.

Re: Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

#177

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 c…

[deleted]

Re: Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

#178

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 c…

> 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 ch…

> 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.

Re: Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

#179
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't attribute it to malice. The author has got that probably right: the people in charge think in iOS terms.

Ah yes iOS where refreshing a page now requires you to menu dive instead of having an always accessible button up top

Tap the top of the screen and Safari jumps to the top of the page. Pull down to refresh.

Re: Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

#180
post #36
post #19

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 addr…

If productivity is that much the problem, just use shortcuts.

Shortcuts are orthogonal to UI. They're used as a bypass.

We shouldn't neglect UI productivity just because there are shortcuts.

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