11/11/08
14Opera users: Your UI feedback is wanted!
I’m currently working on a strategy on how to take the Opera UI forward, and I’m eager to get your opinions on a particular subject: Native look and feel.
How much does Opera feel like native application on your operating system? How much does it matter to you? Those using Opera on just one platform may want it look utterly native, whereas those using it on multiple platforms might appreciate a consistent ‘family’ look. This is one of the things I’ll be looking at, and striving to find the right balance and approach.
I’m predominantly a OS X user, so I’m particularly looking for (constructive!) feedback from users on other platforms. In the past, I’d always thought that the Mac was the only platform where where Opera looked like it didn’t quite ‘fit’, but I need to be sure!
Please let me your thoughts via this simple form. Thanks in advance for all your help!
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Scott Nellé said 56 days ago:
For what it’s worth, I think the windows version is just right. It’s pretty close to looking like a native app, but it’s just different enough to make it refreshing. The white chrome (instead of default gray) makes it feel really light and clean.
coxy said 56 days ago:
I’ll be sure to fill out the form when I get home, and probably spread it around fellow Opera users like an STD.
Also, if you get in touch with Espen (espenao at opera dot com), he’ll probably post this on the front page of my.opera.com and you’ll get a lot more responses.
PS: Get rid of the Fast Forwardd / Rewind buttons as default. Thanks. :)
Felipe Tofani said 56 days ago:
i have been using opera for the last couple of months on a windows vista machine and two macbooks. and i must agree with scott on the first post. opera looks like a native app but with enough difference to stand out and. but on my mac it is the other way around. i have tried a few skins and none of them quite get it right.
Oliver Zheng said 56 days ago:
On Windows Vista, the native skin looks pretty native. On Linux, it looks god awful.
The UI is taking up more space than necessary though (see Chrome). More screens are becoming widescreens now, so why waste the valuable horizontal space? Maybe some UI concept that puts tabs, url bar & menus all to the left or right to save space. After all, websites scroll from top to bottom…
Jon, would you please be so kind to pass a word to Opera developers that Opera 9.5+ (including the now 9.62) are terribly unstable on Vista? As a power user, I close/open/switch tabs faster than I eat cake, but Opera isn’t responding well. I had to downgrade to Opera 9.27 so it would not crash as much on Vista. Thanks!
Israel Orange said 56 days ago:
It’s fine on Windows and seems very native, perhaps because Windows is so clunky anyway that you can’t tell how little polish has been put into it. It feels phony and out-of-place on Ubuntu and the Mac. I wrote a little about the main Mac problems here. It’s not just matters of look and feel, although there is that. It’s behavior, and it’s also the fact that Opera doesn’t throw its lot in with the platform and take full advantage of its richness. I know Windows is a crummy platform and it makes sense to invent a lot of your own wheels, but on the Mac there’s a lot of platform goodness being ignored, which means that I preferred to use Safari even when it was slower than Opera because it was better integrated.
The new Death Star Control Panel look is so off-putting that I don’t even launch Opera any more. Was that a misguided attempt to look more Vista-ey?
Israel Orange said 56 days ago:
(I didn’t bother with the form since it specifically asks for everything but Mac feedback).
Dumitru Tira said 56 days ago:
Haven’t used Opera in years, but one thing is for sure, the icon is ugly as hell.
Chris Hester said 55 days ago:
Why does everyone hate the Opera icon? It’s simple and effective to me. Of course I’m sure Jon will be able to do a better version, but that’s not the point. Hmmm, wonder if the new version will feature an animal like a gorilla or a fox?
Scott Mallinson said 55 days ago:
Hi Jon, congrats on getting the job at Opera.
Would you also like feedback for Opera Mini which I use daily on my phone? There are some nuances that I have come across using the browser and I would love the opportunity to feedback my views.
Jon Hicks said 55 days ago:
Scott – please do! Mobile is one the options, but please state your mobile platform
DJCarbon43 said 48 days ago:
John, if you kill the shadow on the logo, you could do nothing for the remainder of your time at Opera, yet still be a hero to us all!
Hank said 45 days ago:
First of all, Congratulations for taking this post as it would be of utmost importance if you want more people to change to Opera from other browsers. I am very excited to give feedback to a person who works in Opera(it is my favourite browser) and will grab this opportunity:
Could you please change the forward/back buttons to look more aesthetically pleasing as they just look plain compared to the blue popout buttons in IE7/8 and the much improved buttons in Firefox 3? Also it would be better if you got rid of the gray on the 9.5/9.6 interface, especially for mail and change it to blue for windows as it would look much more native on windows, however gray would look good on a mac. Also the entries on the inbox could be differentiated by using blue and yellow. It would also be better if you changed the font from courier to something more clean and aesthetically pleasing such as calibri/cambria or times new roman or lucida on a mac as font is steadily becoming cleartype and it the courier used now looks a bit strange. You should also consider the fact that the Title bar in xp is sky blue and in vista it is dark blue and the interface should go hand in hand with that. Otherwise you could get rid of the title bar as google has done for chrome. It would also be nice if the icons were more colourful than the dull gray that they are in the current 9.5/6 interface.
This is all I have to say for now. Your remarkable team knows best. Best of Luck for Opera 10 and many like me will eagerly await it.
Hank said 43 days ago:
Please change the tab bar so that if around 25 tabs are open the user can navigate easily by pressing arrows in either direction(like in firefox) as there are power users out there who like Opera because of its advanced features but become frustrated because they find it difficult to switch around 25 or so tabs. You could also make the Tab bar become a double layer bar and then add arrows after there are too many tabs for both layers. Just my Feedback :)
Jon Hicks said 43 days ago:
Hank – you can do all of that in Opera at the moment, you might just have to change some preferences.