Great user experiences are meant to fade into the background. This is a great example of something that they clearly put a lot of thought into, specifically so you wouldn't notice it.
Chrome has a masterful UX, and I'm curious to see if it continues to remain that way as the app ages.
In placing the close button on the right, Google have assumed that in the majority of cases, users are going to be wanting to close the most recently opened tabs first (likely to be the ones to the far right of the tab group) and have accordingly placed the close button on the right. Why? Because not only does this give the user the ability to close a number of tabs in one go without moving the mouse pointer (which Safari does not), it also means that the app does not need to exhibit the ever-so-slightly less normal behaviour of the ‘delayed resizing’ in the most-common case.
I would also wager that while Chrome is available on other operating systems, it's probably catering to Windows users by keeping the close buttons (be it a Window or Tab) on the right where most user expect them to be. Similarly, Safari, more at home on OSX than any other OS, would cater to those users by keeping it on the left.
As for the slick behavior Chrome emits when working with Tabs, I'll admit I never noticed it. But maybe that just proves the author's point, "It just works!"
It's not redundancy, it's a title. No tab that I have open has room for it's title in Chrome, and almost no tab ever will. If you believe seeing page titles is important, than you have to agree that the Firefox/Safari/etc. approach is superior in that particular regard.
But I, like most people I suspect, don't really care about page titles.
If the tabs are at the bottom and your Chrome window is not maximized, the tabs may not be visible. You have to drag Chrome up in the screen to make the tabs appear.
Oh noes, accidentally closing a tab! As it turns out, on Chrome simply pressing ctrl+shift+t reopens the most recently closed tab, pressing it again reopens the one closed before that, etc.
A nice feature and a partial mitigator, but just because a destructive action is undoable, it doesn't mean there doesn't need to be any concern over the action being accidentally triggered. Both because accidental actions are annoying and because many users won't know how to undo it.
As someone pointed out, the new tab page also has a "recently closed" list, so even if you didn't know the keyboard shortcut this feature is still readily discoverable.
In general I think the better UI model is based on low friction w/ undo (lowering the cost of mistakes while streamlining normal use) rather than based on high friction using confirmations etc. (lowering the likelihood of mistakes but raising the cost of legitimate actions as well).
To my eye the tabs in Chrome make more sense visually too. The tabs appear connected to the document being viewed and not to the address bar like they do in Safari.
I kind of liked the Apple take on it, but I think Chrome out did them by making the tab only take up most of the vertical titlebar space. If Apple did that, I think it would have worked out better.
The top tabs do indeed make a lot more sense in a number of key aspects. But it's important to remember that the entire concept of tabs in OS X windows has long been criticized by a contingent of hardcore apple fans who argue it breaks from the one-document-per-window model. And they have a point, and it is part of why tabs in OS X are hard in general. Plus, in the safari beta they were pretty ugly and visually messy.
I loved those tabs, and I was really annoyed when they removed them in the next beta after that. I stuck with the same beta for months because of that.
It's good to hear how much thought and effort they put into the UI. Nevertheless, I have my own list of gripes with Chrome tabs and windowing.
1) Closing the last tab closes the browser: Yes, I get that it's a fast browser and restarting a new instance is quick but when I close all the tabs, I am not ready to stop browsing. I am only trying to close the current tabs so I can go to some other site. Let me choose if I want the last close-tab to shutdown Chrome also or not.
2) No warning before 'close all': Seriously. Every browser has this. If I have a bunch of tabs open and by mistake I click the close button in Chrome, it just immediately shuts down. Let me choose if I want this to happen or not.
3) Top-left 'system menu': Every Windows application lets you left-click on the top-left corner of the window to get the system menu, while double-clicking the same top-left corner closes the window. Except in Chrome. Right-clicking the title bar does work but it's not the same.
4) Tiny '+' button for new tab: Sure I can use keyboard shortcuts but it's not always easy on a tablet. There's enough space in the tab-bar. Make the '+' a little wider. Also, use the top infinite space above the '+' icon.
5) Can't put the tabs on the bottom: That would be a nice option to have, though I'm ok with the tabs being on the top.
6) No simple way to open bookmarks in new tabs automatically.
7) No way to set if newly opened tabs (via a-href target=_blank or right-click 'open in new tab') should go to background or get into foreground.
8) Permanently pin a tab: I'd love to always have Hacker News, reddit, gmail, and my todo list pinned. If I restart Chrome, the pinned tabs go away. It's not the same as putting all of them in the startup list.
This being said, I recently switched to Chrome on all 3 of my regular PCs/laptops after 6 years of Firefox/Firebird/Mozilla. Chrome is super fast, finally has some ad-blocking, syncs my bookmarks (though that's not perfect), and is standards-compliant.
I use it for 3 different pinned tabs at startup and it works great. It would be nice to have it configurable from the options menu, but I will take what I can get.
#6 is the main reason I haven't switched to Chrome. I have a set of bookmarks I like to read daily and a set I read weekly. In Safari cmd-click opens them all, I haven't yet figured out how to do it in Chrome.
Re #3: It's also annoying that the right-click menu isn't the system menu. I regularly use the right-click menu on the task bar to move stuff between virtual desktops. Doesn't work in Chrome.
I wish application programmers learned to leave the system part of their windows alone. It messes up my work flow at no benefit whatsoever.
One thing that annoys me about Chrome is that on closing a tab with Ctrl + W, it will always open the tab that's on the right of the closed tab. In Opera you have the option to activate the last active tab on closing. That way, you can just click on all the tabs you want closed (no need to hit the tiny close tab button), and then press Ctrl + W until they're all gone. Or you can open a bunch of google search results in background tabs, read through them and easily remove them afterwards.
I'm really done with tabs only at the top. I use the Tree-style Tabs extension for Firefox and can't imagine going back.
You will notice an increase in browsing/research productivity because you don't spend so much time managing tabs that have gotten too small/short to tell what they actually are. You'll find you can work handily with dozens of tabs open if you have them in a readable list on the left.
Before I used tree-style tabs, I usually maxed out at, like, 10 tabs open. And then I was somewhat sad and started my "tab GC" to close the least needed ones. Right now, I have 40+ tabs open in Firefox 3.5 and it feels just as breezy as it does with ten. More so, actually, because I have all my varied research in different trees that I can collapse/hide if needed.
Give me Chrome with the tabs on the side, preferably in a tree hierarchy, and you've won.
I'll have to adjust to it, but I can tell right away that this extension improves the browsing experience by giving some type of order to tabs and child tabs.
The Tree-Style Tabs extension lets you put the tab bar on any of the four sides of the window, although you don't get the fancy collapse/expand features at the top or bottom.
As a long-time OmniWeb user, I've become quite attached to thumbnailed tabs in a drawer on the side of the window. There's a Firefox extension called TabSidebar that approximates this, but it's an inferior implementation. Tabs at the top of the window are almost completely useless, though---far too little visual information to associate the tab widget with the page it controls.
Both Safari and Firefox have by now had a chance to copy this behavior, but neither have, even though both have added other features to their tab bars.
Seriously though, I just fired up Opera (v. 9.63 - I never use Opera) and it does not have this behavior. Tabs resize as son as they are closed, from the left, middle, and right. So in addition to being smug, you're also wrong. To give you the benefit of the doubt, I upgraded to Opera 10.10 and tried again. Still the tabs resize as soon as one is closed.
So, you're saying that by extending Opera in some way you can get it to do this? Because it definitely doesn't do that by default. I don't think my Opera install could get any defaultier, and I'm not seeing it.
There is a hidden feature on many tabs - They close with mouse middle click! This is extremely important on tabs, because they always seems to have the smallest x button possible.
I've tested it to work on Firefox, chrome, IE, Visual studio and other applications.
I don't like how chrome of firefox does tab closing. When I close a tab, it can take a few seconds, and it feels like I missed the tiny button, so I click it again. Of course, this happens just as the tab is closed, and I end up closing the next one as well. Very thankful for history of clsoed tabs.
Not really hidden, it's very common (and extremely useful - Fitts's law FTW) user interface convention.
I already became conditioned - I keep middle-clicking to close tabs automatically in every application, feeling something is broken when it doesn't work.
Though Mac people don't usually have more than 1 button, so I kind of understand obsession about workarounds :).
I can live with the close button being on the right, but I strongly prefer the way Safari does it. I accidentally close more than one tab fairly frequently, and while I know and love the "History -> Recently Closed Tabs" workaround in Firefox, it is a workaround for the bad UI of having a close button I don't want to press pop up right under the close button I'm clicking on. I'm not the most dexterous person (to put it mildly), and further punishing my klutziness by requiring precision work with the mouse is not my idea of a good UI.
Both Firefox and Chrome let you right click on any tab after closing another one and reverse that action ( FF: "Undo close tab", Chrome: "Reopen closed tab").
I agree, happens to me all the time. The problem is that destroying a tab doesn't happen instantly, and you click again and again. Since the click is buffered, it will apply the action after the tab is closed.
Safari feels much more thought out I have to say, but the feature/bug mentioned here seems just a result of full space tabs while in FFox/Chrome they are acting as fixed width.
Rule of UI: count on and compensate for human errors and behaviour. Safari wins there for me (UI wise).
I like conkeror's interface better. I never even think about "tabs"; I just create a new buffer when I want one. I couldn't tell you how many I have open right now, but I could instantly switch to any "tab" I think might be open. Very convenient.
Eureka! I knew there was something funny going on with the tabs. It's been disheartening seeing them sliding around on their own. I thought I was losing my mind.
I've always thought this feature was particularly well thought out in chrome. Another thing I've noticed is that, when closing tabs via middle click, the wait for auto-resize doesn't happen until mouse out - in fact I barely even use the close buttons anymore because of this.
I've been using chrome since it came out, and I noticed the tab features (the close tab button on the right was not apparent as a feature because I am used to it being there) right away because they made a HUGE different. Chrome is amazing.
I've always loved this feature in Chrome. I mainly use Chrome on my netbook, and this really helps because moving the mouse a lot when I'm trying to close a lot of tabs is hard with the tiny trackpad on my Eee PC. Thanks, Chrome!
This reminds me of Joel Spolsky's take on UI. "A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly how the user thought it would."
Never once while manipulating tabs in Chrome have I done something and then asked, "Now why did that happen?" The tabs do what I expect them to do so I don't have to think about them.
As a side note, I also find the "duplicate" feature in the right-click menu useful, something at least Safari lacks.
The old firefox had a single X that worked on the current tab. It was superior in every way. Took up less space, prevented accidental closes, easily allowed rapid closing. They got rid of it, and I never could figure out why.
You can still make it work that way if you want. The about:config option is browser.tabs.closeButtons, and the value you want for a single close button for all tabs is '3'.
That option may be superior in every way, as you say. Well, unless you want to close a tab other than the current one. Since that is something I sometimes want to do, I don't like it.
105 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 177 ms ] threadChrome has a masterful UX, and I'm curious to see if it continues to remain that way as the app ages.
I would also wager that while Chrome is available on other operating systems, it's probably catering to Windows users by keeping the close buttons (be it a Window or Tab) on the right where most user expect them to be. Similarly, Safari, more at home on OSX than any other OS, would cater to those users by keeping it on the left.
As for the slick behavior Chrome emits when working with Tabs, I'll admit I never noticed it. But maybe that just proves the author's point, "It just works!"
But I, like most people I suspect, don't really care about page titles.
If the tabs are at the bottom and your Chrome window is not maximized, the tabs may not be visible. You have to drag Chrome up in the screen to make the tabs appear.
In general I think the better UI model is based on low friction w/ undo (lowering the cost of mistakes while streamlining normal use) rather than based on high friction using confirmations etc. (lowering the likelihood of mistakes but raising the cost of legitimate actions as well).
Why don't they change the color of the tab as soon as close is clicked, or some other visual clue. It can take a second or more to close a tab.
http://www.macworld.com/article/139026/2009/02/safari4tabs.h...
1) Closing the last tab closes the browser: Yes, I get that it's a fast browser and restarting a new instance is quick but when I close all the tabs, I am not ready to stop browsing. I am only trying to close the current tabs so I can go to some other site. Let me choose if I want the last close-tab to shutdown Chrome also or not.
2) No warning before 'close all': Seriously. Every browser has this. If I have a bunch of tabs open and by mistake I click the close button in Chrome, it just immediately shuts down. Let me choose if I want this to happen or not.
3) Top-left 'system menu': Every Windows application lets you left-click on the top-left corner of the window to get the system menu, while double-clicking the same top-left corner closes the window. Except in Chrome. Right-clicking the title bar does work but it's not the same.
4) Tiny '+' button for new tab: Sure I can use keyboard shortcuts but it's not always easy on a tablet. There's enough space in the tab-bar. Make the '+' a little wider. Also, use the top infinite space above the '+' icon.
5) Can't put the tabs on the bottom: That would be a nice option to have, though I'm ok with the tabs being on the top.
6) No simple way to open bookmarks in new tabs automatically.
7) No way to set if newly opened tabs (via a-href target=_blank or right-click 'open in new tab') should go to background or get into foreground.
8) Permanently pin a tab: I'd love to always have Hacker News, reddit, gmail, and my todo list pinned. If I restart Chrome, the pinned tabs go away. It's not the same as putting all of them in the startup list.
This being said, I recently switched to Chrome on all 3 of my regular PCs/laptops after 6 years of Firefox/Firebird/Mozilla. Chrome is super fast, finally has some ad-blocking, syncs my bookmarks (though that's not perfect), and is standards-compliant.
http://lifehacker.com/5422014/make-google-chrome-open-with-p...
I use it for 3 different pinned tabs at startup and it works great. It would be nice to have it configurable from the options menu, but I will take what I can get.
I wish application programmers learned to leave the system part of their windows alone. It messes up my work flow at no benefit whatsoever.
Another way to do this is to middle click on the tabs you want to close.
You will notice an increase in browsing/research productivity because you don't spend so much time managing tabs that have gotten too small/short to tell what they actually are. You'll find you can work handily with dozens of tabs open if you have them in a readable list on the left.
Before I used tree-style tabs, I usually maxed out at, like, 10 tabs open. And then I was somewhat sad and started my "tab GC" to close the least needed ones. Right now, I have 40+ tabs open in Firefox 3.5 and it feels just as breezy as it does with ten. More so, actually, because I have all my varied research in different trees that I can collapse/hide if needed.
Give me Chrome with the tabs on the side, preferably in a tree hierarchy, and you've won.
Edit: Link, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5890
I'll have to adjust to it, but I can tell right away that this extension improves the browsing experience by giving some type of order to tabs and child tabs.
Tabs do not show the close buttons for me in Opera, it wastes too much of precious space.
Seriously though, I just fired up Opera (v. 9.63 - I never use Opera) and it does not have this behavior. Tabs resize as son as they are closed, from the left, middle, and right. So in addition to being smug, you're also wrong. To give you the benefit of the doubt, I upgraded to Opera 10.10 and tried again. Still the tabs resize as soon as one is closed.
Maybe you're thinking of something else?
I've tested it to work on Firefox, chrome, IE, Visual studio and other applications.
I already became conditioned - I keep middle-clicking to close tabs automatically in every application, feeling something is broken when it doesn't work.
Though Mac people don't usually have more than 1 button, so I kind of understand obsession about workarounds :).
Safari feels much more thought out I have to say, but the feature/bug mentioned here seems just a result of full space tabs while in FFox/Chrome they are acting as fixed width.
Rule of UI: count on and compensate for human errors and behaviour. Safari wins there for me (UI wise).
(The mouse is also not used.)
Never once while manipulating tabs in Chrome have I done something and then asked, "Now why did that happen?" The tabs do what I expect them to do so I don't have to think about them.
As a side note, I also find the "duplicate" feature in the right-click menu useful, something at least Safari lacks.
Agreed, except for Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab.
"10 things I hate about tabs", or "Why I'm quitting Chrome", or "The death of browser usability"
Kudos to the author for having the seemingly rare gift if common sense.