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Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

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

#331

Post by shinycode »

zapzupnz wrote: post #329
shinycode wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I CMD+R every time and I guess for the amount of time people reload it’s not costly to learn it …

In usability heuristics, that's called an accelerator. We would normally call it a shortcut. Whatever you call it, the point is it's an alternative to doing it in a more accessible way, not THE way.

I understand that, maybe they’ve done studies on how often people reload a page and made a decision based on numbers. After 20 years of browsing the web, at least for me, THE way became the shortcut and I never click on that (now useless) button. I can understand why they pushed it a click away, maybe numbers/studies back this up, maybe not. Personally I like having some buttons on the toolbar but I think I prefer the cleaner UI even more and I don’t mind doing 1 click to find them back. Anyway when we play games we never count clicks right? It’s not like it really cost us anything … but that’s just me.

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

#332

Post by irrational »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #244
irrational wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

> 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 coul…

There came a time where the site was moved to a different department. We, the dev team, went along with the site. Before we left we asked the business person we got along with best about our suspicions and she confirmed every one of them.

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

#333

Post by apple4ever »

martimarkov wrote: post #298
Asmod4n wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t remember the Mac OS X Release when Apple removed the dedicated reload button from Safari. Was it 10.6?

I'm on Big Sur and have it on my Safari?

It was a separate button on the toolbar, not right next to the address bar (which if you misclick you end up editing the URL instead of reloading).

And it was Safari 4, released in 2008!

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

#334

Post by apple4ever »

zarzavat wrote: post #273
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I maintain separate windows, but they still end up with 30+ tabs each.

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

#335

Post by apple4ever »

yxhuvud wrote: post #145
rubyist5eva wrote: post #74

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.

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.

OmniWeb, back in the early days of OS X, did that. They used the drawer concept.

I really loved that. All my tabs (with mini pictures of them) were on side, which made them easy to see and didn't take up vertical space.

(OmniWeb was a great browser in other ways).

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

#336

Post by apple4ever »

1_player wrote: post #3

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…

I don't know what they were thinking either. It's a horrid change. Can't see the tabs any more, the URL is no style hidden now, and the URL bar is now jumping around like crazy.

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

#337

Post by bitsoda »

montroser wrote: post #269
Bud wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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).

To a certain extent. If you show too much content at the expense of navigation you simply make your app harder to use. There’s a sweet spot in the UX bell curve and I feel like the new Safari missed the mark. Although, the iOS version looks like an upgrade for one handed use.

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

#338

Post by apple4ever »

geerlingguy wrote: post #8

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?

Yup I've used Safari since OmniWeb was canceled. This was the first time I thought about switching - that's how bad I find the UI.

I'm thinking of going with Vivaldi if I do, and Firefox secondarily.

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

#339

Post by apple4ever »

kbrose wrote: post #125
Tempest1981 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

WHOA that is amazing! That would solve so many of this issues.

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

#340

Post by tcoff91 »

apple4ever wrote: post #333
martimarkov wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on Big Sur and have it on my Safari?

It was a separate button on the toolbar, not right next to the address bar (which if you misclick you end up editing the URL instead of reloading). And it was Safari 4, released in 2008!

Command R. I use a browser that has a refresh button and I don’t bother using it ever.
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