Safari 4 and a New Tabs Redesign

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  • 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.