Vlad I find v3 the best because the height of the gray rectangle for the active tab is the same as the address bar. v2 has the gray border which I don't like
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Compact tabs
Personally I think 1 is the best, with 2 being my second choice. 1 has the most clear and minimal design which results in the best user experience IMO. Also, no one has mentioned how any of these designs are going to look and function with the "Use compact size" option enabled in Preferences->Appearance (different from "compact tabs" in Safari), I think options 5 and 6 are going to look quite weird with this option enabled, making it hard for the user to know which tab is currently selected.
Couple points I want to add:
1) I'm very against combining the address bar with tabs, I think any implementation of this is a bad time. I'm all for saving vertical real estate, but combining important elements of the toolbar is not the way.
2) In the prototype for v1, the shade showing which tab is selected is not the same height as the address bar. I assume this is just an error in the prototype, and will be the same height as the address bar when fully implemented.
Do these design mock-ups remind you of the early days of the browser era? Well, there were separate search box and URL bar, but in the end, every browser today combines URL bar and search box. But Safari 15 went one step further and combined 3 UI elements: the URL bar, the search field and the tabs. To be more elegant and to save a lot of space on small devices like the MBA M1. For what other reason do the Orion developers not want to combine UI elements the way Safari has done?
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Honcharenko It is explained several times in the thread, so I'll let you read it 
Vlad I like V3 the best, since V1's tabs look uncomfortably close together especially when the selection is going from a tab to the one next to it.
I'm thinking that it could be V3 by default, and when theres more tabs it switches to V1 to make better use of the space.
V2 with the outlined tabs don't seem to have a consistent UI grouping system. The address bar has an outline since its one UI element with a distinct purpose, but the tabs shouldn't have outlines since they belong to a tab bar and are not distinct or unique UI elements.
Hi Vlad,
I really think these are good mockups.
One of my major concerns is how much space the address bar takes up, still, and how little space is given to the tabs. As a keyboard shortcut user, the tabs really should be front and center, and really this doesn't feel like it's the "best of both worlds" situation, but rather a hindrance to both the full width address bar and the compact tabs.
To check the URL in Safari compact tabs, I can press Cmd+L and see a full address bar located on the tab I am currently using. This is ideal. I only want to see a URL when I press Cmd+L. Otherwise, it's pretty useless.
In these mockups, it's hard to see what each tab is, and the address bar is too short to be very useful. So, there are two UI elements are hindered in these mockups, making both lose the utility intended.
I would really encourage the view that people have different preferences, and there is a large portion of your community that prefers the universal UI element. Please consider supporting this as an option.
I don't believe these compact tab options that you have shared are better than the two row solution. Neither the tabs nor the address bar provide a great user experience in these mockups.
That's just me though. What do I know.
the compact tabs design will be a new addition to the browser, and the existing UI will not be removed.
8 days later
Vlad Iām a little late to this, but I like the general feel of v3, but can also see v2 working if the accessibility option for showing the toolbar button outlines works.
alicerunsonfedora I think that's a good compromise
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Honcharenko Did you look through the 275 comments to find the justification? I'm squarely in your camp of wondering why there are six mocks without any of them matching the "UI reference" of Safari.
Here's the same page on Safari and Orion with compact enabled. Safari is orange.
Summary for posterity
Many users have chimed in explaining the merits of the Safari compact tab design, to find some of their opinions search for @ajgraves and @Hybrid. The Orion devs have deemed the Safari UI bad since the search bar is not in a static location, which they claim is a UX "no no". Hence none of the mocks seek for feature parity with Safari.
This is disapointing. It's one thing for your preferred design to not prevail, that's a bummer, but oh well just use Safari or suck it up. Beyond disapointing into the realm of troubling is the lack of maintainer sympathy for many of its users on one of the most requested features. If you don't have the vision for why something is useful it doesn't mean it isn't. It feels like trying to explain tabs in a browser to someone who has always used a bunch of windows. "Why what does this achieve?" Until you actual live in it and learn how people who love it use it.
I still think Orion has a lot of promise, but for me this attitude is chilling my adoption. I guess I'll circle back in 6mo and see if anything has changed. In the mean time I would suggest the FAQ around this topic be ammended to reflect the present values of the team.
Spirarel Many users have chimed in explaining the merits of the Safari compact tab design
Correct, but many ppl also like the proposal to have the address bar in a static location. Just because what Safari does looks great necessarily mean that Orion can't take what Safari did and improve on it.
Spirarel It's one thing for your preferred design to not prevail
Indeed, but its impossible for everyone to get everything that they want. Compromises need to be made, and no matter what, some people will be unhappy. The end result cannot be having dozens of choices to choose for the tab bar UI.
Spirarel Why what does this achieve?" Until you actual live in it and learn how people who love it use it.
This argument swings both ways. Maybe we should all try the proposed Orion style compact tabs and see if we like it.
Also, just to clarify, just because Safari is a "UI reference" does not mean that Orion has to replicate everything Safari does. Safari does some thing's great, some things poorly. Orion developers try to take what is very good, and improve what safari does poorly. they believe that the static address bar location is something that is necessary.
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"oh well just use Safari or suck it up".
Just to clarify, nobody said this. What we said we think the way Safari did it is not optimal from the UX perspective and we want to improve it.
Beyond disapointing into the realm of troubling is the lack of maintainer sympathy for many of its users on one of the most requested features. If you don't have the vision for why something is useful it doesn't mean it isn't.
We do have a vision for the product. It is shaped by this community. Sometimes the community is divided and we ultimately decide the path in such cases. The amount of time we spend discussing this with the community testifies to our commitment to doing the right thing.
Once we are a trillion dollar company like Apple we will hapilly add another option (ot two!) for the compact bar, until then you have to bear with us and trust decisions we make.
Just to clarify, nobody said this.
I've removed the quotes from my OP to avoid giving that impression. Those were my words alone.
Dropping the discussion of compact tabāVlad, I would serious consider changing that line in the FAQ. I found your website last night, read the entire thing (FAQ included), got super excited, installed Orion this morning, immediately looked for Safari15-esque compact tabs, and then found this thread.
Reading all of it, I can tell you most comments are for people looking for Safari compact tabs (prior to crafting a poll where they weren't even an option). It's just misleading to claim to "abide by [the decisions that Apple made] at every point where they serve our users' interests." when your users have made their Apple-aligned interests known, and you chose contrary.
It's a pretty souring experience which is avoidable in the future by not setting that expectation.
Anyway, all the best. It's a very cool project and I wish you success.
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Spirarel When we say we are going to abide by Apple decisions we mean following the HIG (Human Interface Guidelines).
In the case of Safari we believe Apple is not following the HIG and that our proposal does. It is not first time that Apple does not follow its own guidelines, new System preferences in Ventura are another example.
Orion is commited to following HIG, even when Safari does not.
That is a very bold statement.
Unfortunately, the conversations here mostly are subjective opinions being presented as objective fact without any evidence to back it up.
I just find it ironic that you want to adhere to Apple HIG, but you're looking to 2011 Microsoft for Interact Design Principals, which we're all aware of how great the Microsoft user experience was back then.
It was designed in an area where 75% of users had 3.59 tabs or fewer open, while the high end of tabs were upwards of 11 tabs. According this same article (which uses date provided by Test Pilot), Microsoft used similar data in designing IE9. [1]
Another study conducted by Patrick Dubroy in 2009, albeit a much smaller sample size than the million Test Pilot users, showed similar results to the Test Pilot study [2]
Today's browsing habits are significantly different. If there was research to conclude that this tab design provided a better user experience, or users had a significant attachment to it, Microsoft likely would have kept it around just 4 years later in the release of Edge. Instead, it only lived on with Internet Explorer 11. which was simply a release to keep corporations happy with a consistent interface for compliance reasons.
It was difficult to find modern large scale studies on the number of open tabs, but based on a quick survey of individuals near me, our average is as high as the outliers in the surveys from 2009 and 2010.
User Experience is not designed. Subjective opinions are not fact. A design not adhering to HIGs is not a poor interaction. In fact, some of the best designed products have gone against standard HIG.
In no world is a swipe to scroll an intuitive user interaction.
In no world is two fingers to click as a secondary menu an intuitive user interaction.
In no world is an address bar docked on the left side of the screen while my active tab is on the right an intuitive user interaction.
These are learned interactions.
That is not to say that your design is bad. It is good.
Now, it's important to acknowledge that design is always subjective, and a subjectively bad design can provide a better experience for many users.
Based on the forum here, more users prefer the compact tab design of Safari 15, but are willing to settle for Internet Explorer 9.
At the end of the day, innovation dies by adhering to 10 year old HIGs.
I admire what you're doing with Orion, and I'll continue to support both Orion and Kagi, but I am disappointed with the way that the discussion and implementation of this feature has turned out.
Hybrid At the end of the day, innovation dies by adhering to 10 year old HIGs.
Respectfully, who exactly is asking for UI to be constantly innovating to a point where itās HIG-breaking? As a user, Iād rather use native apps that follow the HIG of its host operating system than trying to shove its brand identity down my throat or do something āinnovativeā that is completely unexpected from how other apps function.
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Hybrid Our main point is that URL bar is the vital part of a browser. As such this element should behave in consistent and predictable manner. Making URL bar slide around the toolbar depending on what tab is selected is not good UX (in our opinion). URL bar needs to be fixed in place.
Imagine another vital browser UI element like back/forward button exhibiting the same behavior, changing position on the toolbar depending what tab is selected.
That is a very bold statement.
Yes, and bold we have to be. We have to be bold to start a company making a browser against two trillion dollar companies. We have to believe in our ideas and vision. Not every time they will match what every single wants and this is OK. So we have to be bold and say we beleive what we are doing is right. This is what got us this far.
God knows that this company listens to user feedback. I as a CEO have personally read every single one out of nearly 26,000 comments on this site and made nearly 5000 replies. I very well know what users want, and the users built half of this browser already. The other half is our vision.
Not sure if we are still voting;
Primary: 3 - It's clean, tidy and much easier to see the active tab
Secondary: 2 - Second natural choice for me, given its similar to Safari
8 days later
Lack of compact tabs is why I haven't fully switched to Orion yet. The old Safari ones just feel too clunky.
