Why Does Safari 15 Not Look Like a Browser?

Apple announced Safari 15 on WWDC 2021, bringing the newly designed browser to macOS and iOS. The design was so controversial that it changed significantly before being released to the public. There were already many discussions on this, so what I’m trying to answer here is another question which haunted me since the announcement: Why does Safari 15 not look like a browser?

I couldn’t figure it out at that time, so I asked a few friends about this. They said they had similar feelings but didn’t know why as well. More than a year later, I can finally come up with some initial thoughts.

Compact Tabs

Google Chrome

You cannot ignore Google Chrome regarding the design of browsers because it inspired the structures of all major browsers. Chrome’s revolutionary design was widely accepted because its simplified structure could tell the relationship between the browser and web pages more clearly. This video by Alex Faaborg thoroughly explained why Firefox moved to this structure. Even Safari 4 beta adopted this design though it didn’t make it to the stable version.

The reasonability of the structure and the adoption of major browsers changed users’ mental models of web browsers: tabs on top, a prominent address bar, reduced tools, and a large area for web pages.

Safari 15

13 years later, Safari 15 showed us a brand-new design:

The biggest changes are that the tab and address bar combine as one, and the theme color of the current web page extends to the entire browser window. The upsides are a larger area for web pages and a more immersive experience, while many cognitive issues come as follows:

• The title of the current web page isn’t visible while other titles are, making users feel lost
• The theme color of the current page overextends to other tabs
• To move the browser window around, users must drag the gaps between tabs
• The positions of many tabs will change after switching to another one, burdening short-term memory

These issues also directly impact users’ understanding of the structure of the browsers. The mismatch between the current structure and users’ mental models results in the feeling of “unlike a browser”.

Tab Groups

Another new feature of Safari 15 was tab group, which wasn’t first introduced by Safari, but what made it interesting was that its design followed the guidelines of the sidebar on macOS: it was very standalone in many ways, like the separation and the material.

The design of the vertical tab bar of the other browsers is easy to understand because the tabs still lead the address bar and the web pages. The tab groups and the tabs are on the left, while the address bar and the web pages are on the right.

As for Safari, the tab groups are on the left, and the tabs, the address bar, and the web pages are on the right. The right part alone can be seen as a complete browser. As a result, Safari looks like an app for web page management instead of a browser. Perhaps it’s the biggest reason why I didn’t think Safari looked like a browser in the first place.

By the way, the design of the tab bar of Safari 15 emphasized the integration of the browser and web pages, while the sidebar emphasized separation, which leads to a conflict.

Looking Forward

The unfamiliarity of the new design of Safari guided me out of my comfort zone, and I started to think about other ways in which we could interact with web pages. Currently, major browsers are more suitable for treating web pages as standalone ones, while tab groups reinforce the idea of managing web pages.

This is just a glimpse. Recently I came across some browsers and tools that try to remodel the relationship between users and web pages, including Mighty, Arc, Skeema and Switchboard. These are interesting attempts that can bring many meaningful insights. I should stop envisioning the design of the browsers here because of lacking deep research into them.

Many of us have experienced tremendous innovations in various products, yet we still get used to what’s present. It’s hard to break the rules to get better designs which also requires the accumulation of time and effort. But it’s still worthy of consistent thinking until the breakthrough happens.