231–240 of 374 posts
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!
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They're optimizing for a user with a 13" display, who never opens more than 5 tabs, and rarely switches pages.
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 qui…
For the highly-organized, I hear there is a "tab group" concept, for additional joy. Not sure how that "plays" with multiple windows.
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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...)
Honestly, I don't think that almost anyone in real life cares about this "line of death" than yourself.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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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…
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.
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.
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.
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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, wor…
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 no…
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.
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.