I browse a lot of websites with my iPad. At the end of each day, I sit down, relax and open my favorite websites using Safari. Could Safari on the tablet be better though? Yes. If you look closer, Safari on iPad is pretty similar to the desktop version: you have buttons, a chrome, a standard way of interacting with webpages.
So the Arc90 guys thought about this and came up with a genius concept of how Safari on the iPad should have been like.
“Is there better way? Interestingly, once we shed the characteristics of typical OS interfaces, we find new opportunities. To reboot the design of the iPad’s browser interface, we should focus first on how we physically handle the device. I want an experience that takes advantage of where my hands are 90% of the time and provides feedback to what I’m doing that is within my line of sight. While having controls at the top of the browser “window” (it’s hardly a window anymore on the iPad) feels familiar, the main reason it doesn’t work so well is that the key controls are far away. Bookmarks, tabs and the URL bar are nowhere near what I would call the “hot zones”: where our hands grip an iPad.
- Get rid of the chrome up top altogether (the actual Web page reclaims that real estate – a good thing).
- Recognize an edge swipe: it’s essentially a swipe off the edge of the iPad window (either left or right) and reveal controls in a gutter off the Web page.
- Put the bookmarks pane near my thumbs so I can scroll and make selections with either hand.
- Adhere the URL and search windows atop the screen keyboard.”
