Does Vivaldi's UI feel out of date to you?

eskaigarcia

I've been daily driving Vivaldi since version 1.5 (2016), being an early adopter and always searching for the best available option was what brought me here and all the features the updates introduced where what made me stay.

But lately I've found myself looking at other browsers because, even if Vivaldi's offer of features, privacy, personalization and ethics are (in my opinion) unmatched, I do feel like the UI hasn't changed that much since the very first version I tried and it is slowly starting to become crowded as more and more features appear in a space that wasn't originally designed to house so many buttons and sections. Vivaldi used to look cleaner and now, while I adore all the features it has, it feels like there's too much happening at the same time.

I understand the "if it isn't broken don't fix it" midset, especially in a piece of software like Vivaldi where users have customized their experience to a point where making certain changes could disturb their workflows. I also understand that redesigning an interface is a lot of design and development work, that's why I don't want this to come across as a "demand for new features" and I'd rather just have an open debate on whether this is just my opinion or if others agree with me.

TL;DR: A couple of mayor versions ago Vivaldi's UI felt clean and easy to use, right now I get the feeling that more and more features are crammed into an interface that wasn't designed with them in mind, making it look cluttered. Do you agree with me?

RiveDroite

I don't agree, but I think it depends on how you have it setup.

Catweazle

@eskaigarcia, I think it depends on your own settings. Vivaldi has a lot of features and tools, but also offer to show only those which you use and hiding the rest. It's precisely these to be able to make the UI that simple and clean as you want. from the aspect of an old IE to an NASA dashboard, all is possible.

Zalex108

@eskaigarcia

Hi,
You may receive more comments adding some Screenshots to explain your point.

V 1x has many users that used but many more that don't and can't get it.

Also,
Those other Browsers you mention may not be known by some here.

eskaigarcia

@RiveDroite said:

I don't agree, but I think it depends on how you have it setup.

@Catweazle said:

I think it depends on your own settings. Vivaldi has a lot of features and tools, but also offer to show only those which you use and hiding the rest.

I definitely agree that you can trim Vivaldi back and have a cleaner experience. Maybe it is my fault in part because I do use vivaldi as a NASA dashboard with how much of a poweruser I can be at times

But I also think that since Vivaldi targets that type of power users and people who like customization (and privacy too) there should be a way of moving things around enough to stop the UI from having features over features on the same visual section.

Thanks for the inputs ^^

Catweazle

@eskaigarcia, my cluttered UI alt text

Pathduck

@eskaigarcia My uncluttered UI:

eskaigarcia

@Zalex108 said:

You may receive more comments adding some Screenshots to explain your point.

I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining about Vivaldi's current design but I'll provide a couple of the things I have in mind when I say "Features being added to spaces that weren't thought for it" or "Many features in the same visual section"

I know there are ways to customize and "change" many of these examples, I'm just throwing in some examples

Vivaldi's tab management is magestic, the way tabs and tab stacks (in the their different design options) are designed is great, so when I see the sync and trash icons just "floating there" and the Workspaces feature being included as just a dropdown list when it has many more possibilities I am slightly underwhelmed, especially since I really use them and would love to customize them more. It feels like they did it the "easy to code" way.

The sidebar is another one of Vivaldi's masterpieces that I feel could also get a little bit more of love. It's been all these years with the same "list of icons". I'm aware we can now both personalize the sidebar and add an icon pack, but looking at how Edge and especially Opera are implementing sidebars I can't help but feel like it could do more, it feels like Opera (even if I don't particularly like their style) manages to get a bit more of hierarchy on theirs.

And the adress bar is another design element that slowly gets more icons added to it, with the feed reader, reading more, QR code, translator... some fields keep getting more features but they all come at the same visual level, again I sometimes lack a little bit of hierarchy.

I guess my only complaint here is: There are four bars to put information into by default (tabs, side, address and status) plus bookmarks if you turn it on, and sometimes I feel like the information / options they have are always at the same hierarchy level.

@Zalex108 said:

Those other Browsers you mention may not be known by some here.

I wasn't talking about any specific browser because I feel that comparing Vivaldi to those new-gen ai-powered ones like Sigma OS and Arc is unfair since they have clearly different objectives. But I do have them in mind along with Edge, Chrome, Firefox and especially Opera who manages to maintain a design language that's clearly recognizable despite the changes it receives through updates.

eskaigarcia

@Catweazle I love your layout.
It feels like we're going in the exact opposite directions. I'm trying to separate options to add hierarchy and you've fused together the adress and status bar in a way only you know where each section is.

But honestly this is why Vivaldi is great, users that are so different can both create the environment where they thrive and we're not all stuck in one identical Chrome UI for everyone.

Catweazle

@eskaigarcia, the only browsers I know which is comparable to Vivaldi, at least respect customization an features, the Naver Whale, it's an option if you are in Corea. It has even a own web store, but..

alt text

and the Cent Browser

eskaigarcia

@Catweazle Thanks! I'll take a look at it and learn from how they handle the UI.
But I'll definitely stick to Vivaldi, right now I'm thinking about looking into Vivaldi's CSS modifications and working with them rather than changing to another browser.

Catweazle

@eskaigarcia, I use Vivaldi since 8 years and I don't think to change this, but I also have at hand other browsers in test, to compare and in occasions to determinate if an issue is one of Vivaldi or general for other browsers with different engines. So I have also the Mullvad Browser (Gecko) Otter (Qt5) and the SSuite Netsurf (WebView), all in default settings (well, Netsurf has a very nice UI, but no much settings, not even to use other than the default search engine, on the other hand a good and private one, Groot search, with own index.)

Netsurf default aspect
alt text

Pesala

@eskaigarcia Yes, I agree that Vivaldi is cluttered, very cluttered, but it can be customised to remove any menu items, toolbar buttons, speed dials, or panels that you never use. Its wide range of features is what makes it attractive, and there is a long list of over 5,000 feature requests, so at least some users clearly want more.

Out-of-date UI Design is highly subjective. Retro is often fashionable.

Try the Opera 9 Classic Theme for example.

Catweazle

@Pesala, or Otter

alt text ,

but in change it's blazing fast, it opens as fast as the file explorer in Windows click on the icon and it is open in a 1/4 second. (Netsurf isn't also not much slower)

CooperDad

No! Vivaldi is on the cutting edge!

7twenty

Out of date, not sure - I think it does have a bit of a mid-2010's vibe to it. The main menu definitely looks dated, maybe due to the file/edit/view headings, compared to other browsers trying to save clicks and having more showing on the first click. Context menu to a slightly lesser degree. Not sure the update has really helped with that though.

In terms of the rest of the UI, it's definitely functional. Not really sure what else can be done, there's only so many ways to interact with a program. Finding places to put an extra button for a feature doesn't give you that many options unless you want to completely change the browser UX... like what Arc is doing.

@Pesala said in Does Vivaldi's UI feel out of date to you?:

I agree that Vivaldi is cluttered, very cluttered,

Maybe if you enable every bar, button, sidebar etc. I would imagine most people would click the right option during install for their use case so the browser works best for them and it doesn't overwhelm them with options.

@Pesala said in Does Vivaldi's UI feel out of date to you?:

Its wide range of features is what makes it attractive, and there is a long list of over 5,000 feature requests, so at least some users clearly want more.

Yes, but thankfully a bunch of those options won't be a new button, bar or sidebar. A new option in settings that should be a case of enable/disable and then forget about it.

@eskaigarcia said in Does Vivaldi's UI feel out of date to you?:

it feels like there's too much happening at the same time.

I think you need to look at what you have enabled/displayed and decide if you actually need them. If it's something that doesn't get used, hide it. That said, i agree, the trash/sync buttons always bugged me, felt very out of place. But as mentioned, where else could they go? They're tab related, so tab bar makes the most sense, but maybe a dropdown?

I'd be curious to know your ideas on what, how you would change things.

noopiscool

@eskaigarcia no

eskaigarcia

@7twenty said:

In terms of the rest of the UI, it's definitely functional.

It definitely is, and it much more functional than you'd think when presented with the amount of features it includes. But I still like to think about what could be improved

@7twenty said:

I think you need to look at what you have enabled/displayed and decide if you actually need them. If it's something that doesn't get used, hide it.

I understand how this is a punctual solution but I think that Vivaldi should be great with both a simple / minimalist setup and a poweruser setup that has everything turned on. After all it still is native Vivaldi, it's not like someone added toolbars, extensions or mods that made it less visually pleasing.

@7twenty said:

I'd be curious to know your ideas on what, how you would change things.

I do have some ideas but I wanted to hear other people's opinions and get a good look at references before making any serious sketches. I always attempt to make proper resesarch before spending hours on a design that tries to fix a nonexistent problem haha. I'll remember to tag you whenever I share any ideas on this topic.

voyager1sun

Not keeping up with the latest trends isn't a huge issue for me - but it's also not exactly refined in its own style.
Some parts come from Chromium, some from GTK so it's not consistent either.
The Mail and RSS reader's layouts and look is especially confusing and, in way "uncomfortable" .

eskaigarcia

@voyager1sun said in Does Vivaldi's UI feel out of date to you?:

but it's also not exactly refined in its own style.

Completely agree. I feel like most of that "clutter" we've mentioned comes from components that feel out of place. I can't help but feel like some icons don't belong next to each other, the same goes for some menus, dropdowns and dialongs that have a style that doesn't match up.

@voyager1sun said in Does Vivaldi's UI feel out of date to you?:

The Mail and RSS reader's layouts

Yeah, those are a problem for me too. I used the Mail feature a lot because I liked having all my inboxes together, but ended up turning it off because of the UI being uncomfortable. I'd love to go back to it but I would have to mod it first.