Improvements to compact tabs

tothika The original reason given for the existance of this feature is that vertical screen height is a precious resource. We not only delivered on that but went above and beyond what Safari does by offering 'mini toolbar' mode which further shrinks compact tabs by additional 25%. So I hope that we can agree that we overdelivered on the function.

When design is in question, it is tougher because tastes differ so this where HIG should come into play. We believe we followed HIG and Safari didn't. Important UI elements of the application should not change its position on the screen. Address bar is the most important element in a browser and in Safari's implementation it jumps around. In Orion's imlementation, the standard view that we all use and love is just shifted up, and adress bar moved left to accomodate for the tabs coming to the same row. We are being very consistant and have the unfortunate luck of Safari establishing a precendent that became an expectation for some people, and that no matter we do or say they may keep prefering it. That is fine, I just want to understand why exactly, beyond "I want same as Safari".

Perhaps down the road we can add a fourth mode as an option. What is maybe being forgot when such expectation is placed on the Orion team it means that we will be able to build, manage and keep bug free four ways to interact with tabs (lets not forget that Orion also has a fully functional vertical tabs implementation that Safari does not, and other popular browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Arc have only one way of interacting with tabs - that's it!). And all that with 30x less people in the team than Safari team has, and about 1000x less resources than they have available.

So if this implementation is objectively bad (and it is not just power of habit speaking) then I would expect you would be able to produce concrete and constructive feedback from the UX perspective so we can better understand why, and what can be done to improve it, similar to what @Hybrid did.

Vlad
I turned off automatic update. So I late to the party. I just updated Orion today and read the changelog. I immediately turned on Compact mode as soon as I read about it since it’s what I use in Safari. I was dumbfounded and confused. Now, apart from the fact that Orion looks a lot like Safari to the point that I expect the function that has the same name in both browsers work the same, I want to share with everyone my first impression.

Before turned on the Compact mode, there was two tabs. After I turned it on, I saw three tabs appear on the screen from my perpective. I thought this was a bug. No big deal. I hit ⌘W to close the “duplicated tab”. I was dumbfounded when there’s only one tab left. That’s why I'm here.

Considering that Safari merges tabs and address/search bar, the fact that the address/search bar look almost idential to tabs in Orion doesn’t help. So, looking back at my experience, I propose two changes:

1. Make the address/search bar different from tabs. Currently, they are very identical. I’m not a UI designer, so I’m not sure how to make it happen. However, some talented people like @Hybrid can help you.
2. When there’s only one tab, show it to the user. This is a learned behavior. Other browsers that doesn’t merge the address/search bar with tabs still show the tab even if there’s only that tab.

Before moving on, I want to share with you a little bit about myseft. I’m still using Safari as my main browser because of Lockdown Mode. Not that I’m an FBI agent or anything, I just have some NDA stuff on my laptop. I use the Compact layout because:

1. The position of the address bar doesn’t matter to me much. I’m a keyboard guy. I just hit ⌘L. When there’s too many tabs, I hit ⌘⇧\ and type in some letters.
2. The compact layout is, indeed, save space.
3. Yes. It looks sleek IMO.

When scrolling through this whole conversation, I can classify the majority of people into two groups:

1. They like the the Compact layout because it saves space.
2. Look how sleek it is!

I guess I’m in a minority group. I suspect the ones that said “The Compact layout is the only thing keeping me from using Orion” belongs to the second group. And this is the reason why the new Compact layout is so controversial. You have to understand that lots of people buy Apple products just because they look nice; lots of people like macOS because they look nice. For many folks, they can sometimes be willing to sacrifice some functions for something more beautiful in their eye.

Vlad When design is in question, it is tougher because tastes differ so this where HIG should come into play. We believe we followed HIG and Safari didn't. Important UI elements of the application should not change its position on the screen. Address bar is the most important element in a browser and in Safari's implementation it jumps around.

After observing normal folks interacting with tech, I have something to say about this. My mom is that person who type in Google “Facebook” and then tap on the first result. When she wants to do something new, she just hit the + icon and type in whatever she wants. Yes. She has 100+ tabs for no practical reasons. Yes. I set it so old tabs is automatically closed after one week for her. And I am 100% certain she doesn’t know what a domain name is, let alone differentiating between search bars and address bars.

What I want to say is what’s important for someone may not be that important for others. Regardless, I suspect that the majority of Orion’s users know their way around tech. You should keep that in mind. That being said, looks are still, sometimes, a very important factor to them.

Also, I know we are talking about macOS, but Safari on iPadOS implements the Compact layout so much better.

• First, the active tab is shrinked when people search for another tab by scrolling the… toolbar?
• And when being activated, the search/address bar actually expands, taking almost the full-width of the toolbar.

Of course, for the first point, the active tab will bounce back to normal if users don’t switch to another tab. This video is exaggerated to show it in action.

Dear Orion Team,

I'm writing to share feedback on the new "Compact" mode in the tab layout. While I appreciate the effort to maximize screen space by combining tabs and the URL omnibox in the title bar, similar to Safari, there's a specific design choice I find could be improved.

In Safari, the active tab and the omnibox merge seamlessly; when you switch to a different tab, it expands and becomes the omnibox. This creates a fluid and intuitive interface, where the boundary between the tab and the URL entry point is virtually nonexistent. The result is a clean, unified look that not only conserves valuable title bar real estate but also simplifies navigation by clearly indicating the active tab. Conversely, Orion's approach to maintain a fixed omnibox apart from the tabs introduces visual clutter and makes it harder to discern at a glance which tab is currently in focus.

Could we consider adding an option to mimic Safari's approach? Integrating the active tab with the Omnibox would not only save space but also enhance the overall aesthetic and user experience.

Orion

Safari

Splitting the thread for the call for improvements on our current compact tabs implementation.

Note to anyone contributing to the thread to be as concrete and practical in their suggestions.

Just jumping in with a user perspective to some of the proposed solutions:

To me, the confusing bit is having a separate URL bar and tab for the same website, especially when they're separated by several other tabs. Even if you're highlighting the active tab, it's just feels a bit inefficient and confusing (to me) to have the URL on one side of the screen and the tab itself on the other side of the screen with a bunch of unrelated tabs in between — no matter how good the highlight is.

As well, just my opinon, but I feel like the point of compact tabs is not just to save a little vertical space, but horizontal space too. So yes, the current implementation is great for vertical space, that's excellent. But it comes at a huge cost to horizontal space.

I hate to be the guy going "SHRUG idk why don't you just do it like those other guys," but... I do feel like Safari's implementation is kinda the only way that makes sense, really. Like, maybe you could also trying ditching the URL bar entirely, highlight and expand the active tab a bit, then when you click on the active tab, a URL bar pops out? Maybe? But even that just feels like trying to come up with something unique for the sake of it.

Anyway, appreciate you guys working so diligently on this and taking in feedback with an open mind.

My Position - Summary

Orion should either completely copy Safari's compact tabs layout or create a more unique compact tabs layout. Of those options, I think Orion should go with the former (copy Safari) both for ease of implementation and for user satisfaction.
Many users are used to Safari's compact layout and have switched to Orion for its similarity to Safari. This would also obviously be easier for the Orion team to do. They should then move on to other work, which is likely more worthwhile.

Explanation

At this point, I think it is obvious to all that we are not satisfied with the current compact tabs layout offered by Orion. I think the problem lies in not properly identifying, ordering, or addressing the goals of a compact tabs layout. The first goal, as always in UX design, should be an intuitive interface. The second goal should be to compact the URL bar and tabs as much as possible. I think the current compact tabs layout in Orion fails to meet both goals. I will address each of these goals in turn.

Intuitiveness

Design guidelines and principles exist to provide an intuitive experience for users. Therefore, the paramount consideration should be intuitiveness, not adherence to design principles. I think the two are being somewhat conflated.

I think the primary issue the Orion team has not properly considered or addressed is that the Compact layout, as it is designed in both Orion and Safari, makes the appearance of the URL bar and the tabs almost identical.

• Safari solves this by simply combining the URL bar and the active tab. When a tab is selected it expands and its URL can be edited "within" the tab. Because the URL bar and the tabs are integrated in this way, the fact that they look identical does not cause confusion.
• Orion attempts to provide both a large, fixed URL bar and the same design for tabs used in Safari's compact layout. This causes confusion because the URL bar and the tabs look similar, but function differently. To put this problem very simply, it's like having two buttons that look the same but do something different.

The solution to this problem seems obvious to me: either completely copy Safari's compact tabs layout, or create a more unique compact tabs layout. I think @Hybrid 's suggestions are steps towards the latter.

Compacting the Toolbar

A compact layout's secondary goal (other than intuitive control) should be to compact the toolbar as much as possible, both vertically and horizontally. Comparing Safari's and Orion's compact tabs layout with a focus on compactness immediately provides a clear winner.

It is possible the Orion team is focusing too much on vertical compactness, whereas I think many users consider horizontal compactness just as important for things like providing more room for toolbar extensions/buttons, and simply providing a cleaner, more spacious interface.

As a final point, I will add that users who prefer having a large, detail-rich URL bar simply wouldn't choose the compact layout. Those with that preference are better served by the standard or vertical tabs layout.

To reiterate, my suggestion is that Orion should either completely copy Safari's compact tabs layout or create a more unique compact tabs layout. Of those options, I think Orion should go with the former (copy Safari) both for ease of implementation and for user satisfaction.
Many users are used to Safari's compact layout and have switched to Orion for its similarity to Safari. This would also obviously be easier for the Orion team to do. They should then move on to other work, which is likely more worthwhile.

I hope the points I've made here are helpful and will lead to a better Orion.