Safari 4 and a New Tabs Redesign

Posted on by

Safari 4 Beta was released on February 24, 2009, with a huge amount of improvements (they really had a lot to fix). I have been following the web browser interfaces for some time but I would specially like to point out the use of tabs. 
 
In June 2008 Firefox 3 was released and with it a step back on design was achieved. Mozilla copied Safari’s interface without even analyzing if that UI design was the best one. (I wrote a full article about Firefox 3 and tabs).
 
 

Firefox 3 interface mimicking Safari 3, tabs are not attached to pages, they are "hanging" from bookmarks.

Firefox Tabs Design

 

 

 
On the other side, Apple recently noticed that the best and logical way to handle tabs is to place them on top of the window, attaching them to pages.  
 
 

Safari 4

Tabs on Safari

 

 

 
It’s true that most users will need to get used to this change on tabs design but at the end this is the most logical solution. There is a good reason for this… 
 
 

User comment about Safari 4 and tabs.
 
Attaching tabs to pages is a very old idea coming from the real (material) world, this is a very successful and simple design that people understand. So why not following user’s mental models?
 
 

Picture by Takashi

 

  • http://valuedstandards.com David Hund

    Hi Alexis,

    Good points. I believe you are right: tabs on top of the ‘page’ make most sense. I would hesitate to reference the users ‘mental models’ in this context, however, because (clearly) tabs in browsers(!) have mostly (always for 99% of people) NOT been on top.

    The result is that most people today would have to ‘search’ for the tabs in safari 4. Even I had to get used to it (and I have been using a myriad of browsers, including Chrome, for a long time). So while it is true that people would have no doubts about the location of tabs on folders, I feel they would still look for tabs in browsers below(!) the addres bar.

    People get used to it quickly, I guess, though.

    One other thing: while I see the logic behind ‘tabs on top of pages’ I wonder if the location bar should not be on top. Isn’t the location bar a Interface Control, belonging to the application, rather than part of the specific page? Of course the URL _in_ the bar is specific for the page, but the bar itself (just as the home-button and bookmarks button) belongs to the browser application and not(!) to the current page. I would think they should, therefor, be detached from the page.

    More logical would be:

    [application icons and controls, including addres/search/awesome bar]
    [tabs tabs tabs]
    [page]

    Anyway, good thoughts!

  • http://www.designvsart.com/about.html Alexis Brion

    Hi David,

    Thank you for your great comment.

    I think you are right about the order of elements (app icons -> tabs -> page). That makes a lot of sense now. But I don’t know why I have the feeling that this new order on Safari 4 could be the preparation for something bigger: what if web sites would be allowed to customized the browser’s icons and controls to make web services/sites look like applications? In that case an arrangement like this would make sense:

    [tabs tabs tabs]
    [browser icons and controls, website-specific icons and controls]
    [web page, content]

    Of course, I’m just imagining the future…

    Thanks a lot for you comment!

    Alex

  • http://www.makestablemoney.com/ Make Stable Money Online

    I am about to switch over to Safari 4, hearing alot of good things in terms of its speed.