295

Definitely Option 1, probably followed by option 4.

The main factors that influenced my rating:

  • They shouldn't look like static buttons — tabs are dynamic and can be added and removed frequently, unlike the other buttons in the toolbar. Options 2 and 5 fail this criteria, IMO.
  • Should feel like it belongs in the toolbar — Option 3 doesn't feel right to me (the toolbar is otherwise quite flat on the Z axis; adding a drop shadow is weird to me), and option 5 looks fine except that the "tab" visual metaphor doesn't make as much sense when it's disconnected from the page's contents like this).
  • Should feel self-consistent and contiguous — In Option 6, the currently selected tab causes the tab bar to feel like two discontiguous sections to its left and right, rather than a single bar. Rather than "This tab, of n tabs, is selected" it feels like "You are here, but these are some tabs you could click on instead. Also, here are some other tabs." Option 2 also feels like the tabs are quite disparate: they are each self-contained, with gaps in between them, rather than feeling like a single row.

    Voting for 3, makes it easier to see the active tab and it looks clean.

      First choice is 6: It feels a little unique and gives the browser its own identity.
      Second choice is 3: It is one of the easiest to know which tab is active.

      In general, I like the ones that have the active tab highlighted and the inactive tabs shadowed, rather than the other way around.

        1 - clean / more MacOS like
        I would go with 4 that reminds me of the shadow effects of Safari 4 but in the same time it feels oldish.

          Vlad 5 holds the most water for me because of its similarity with the current tab theme in its normal horizontal display. However, I am not digging the specifically designated shaded space for the tabs. It makes them feel detached from everything else. And I understand the importance of allocating the space for them, but the way it is done in this instance feels inappropriate. It's hard for me to put my finger on what it is that puts me off. But a part of me thinks that cutting out the toolbar so that there is like, a pocket of which the tabs can occupy instead of being another thing that the toolbar so happens to have.

          I have absolutely no graphic design talent so I will have to describe what I am talking about.

          So, I imagine lowering the bottoms of the tabs so that they are flush with the border of the toolbar. this will cause these tabs to be misaligned with everything else. so, with that extra headspace above the tabs, that can be for folders or similar to lay right on top of the tabs so to allow quick navigation between batches of tabs for organization with the now limited space.

              Vlad
              I like 1 and 3
              1 - minimal my eyes wont be attracted to the dull color.
              3 - just looks more sound acc. to MacOS UI.

                  Vlad one more suggestion if you are taking one...
                  rather than having the url bar and the tab seperate why not remove the url bar and make it so that when you click a tab it expands to url bar.

                      7thripr I was thinking about this earlier. As it stands, having both "www.google.com" in the address bar and "Google" in the current tab is a bit redundant, so I like this idea in principle. However, implementing it in a way that feels natural would be tricky... For most layouts I've been able to think of, it's overall worse — i.e. the weirdness is increased more than the redundancy is decreased.

                      The only thing I can think of that might work: Remove the address bar from the toolbar entirely, and only have it appear (replacing the current page's favicon and title) when you click on the currently-selected tab (or hit ⌘L). This would potentially work quite well with Option 2, actually, since they already use the same border style as the address bar…

                      Kagi team, if you'd like a mockup of this, let me know, and I'll see what I can do! 🙂

                          Vlad #1 as the first choice for that safari look, but #6 looks pretty good too in how the active tab sort of blends in more with the browser chrome. #2 sacrifices too much tab size for a minimal change in looks IMO.

                              1. very basic, but id rather have something to distinguish between a tab and the rest of the toolbar
                              2. also very basic, the borders are really nice, but a bit too much horizontal space wasted
                              3. the focused tab floating above everything else feels very off and unnatural
                              4. the shading here really helps distinguish between the tabs and the rest of the toolbar, and the grey isn't too much
                              5. similar to 3, but its too much depth here. also, the left side when the leftmost tab is
                              6. seems like the opposite of 1,seems to me that everything is selected except the focused tab

                              ranking (best to worst)
                              4 2 1 5 6 3

                                eirk Ha, oops! I've never used that feature in Safari, so I didn't realize my idea was so similar 😄 After testing it out just now, my proposal was slightly different, as it would show the favicon and title by default, rather than the URL, but otherwise it's exactly the same as Safari's implementation, yes (and I'm not even very attached to the one thing that's different).

                                    2 gets my vote. Definitely the sleekest without being the most in your face. Still are able to differentiate tabs easily.

                                      Can someone summarize the votes? 🙂 Like 2 points for first choice and 1 points for second choice.

                                        Vlad Some people only selected one, or have ties for second place, so take these totals with a grain of salt. Each user's first and second choices given 2 and 1 votes respectively, as you said:

                                        1. 27 votes
                                        2. 21 votes
                                        3. 12 votes
                                        4. 5 votes
                                        5. 9 votes
                                        6. 3 votes

                                            tuesday Thanks for doing this! So the battles is between 1 and 2 it seems.

                                                2 points for first choice, 1 point for second choice. On tossups or no clarification on which is first of their 2 choices they both get 2.

                                                1. 28 votes
                                                2. 29 votes
                                                3. 13 votes
                                                4. 4 votes
                                                5. 10 votes
                                                6. 3 votes

                                                No matter how it's counted it seems 1 and 2 are both favorites. Maybe an option between the two?