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Why do we round corners?

uxdesign.cc

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Re: Why do we round corners?

#11

Post by 0x7E3 »

magicjosh wrote: post #4
0x7E3 wrote: post #2

> We can all appreciate the aesthetic beauty of rounded corners. Can we? Much like that top 40 song that comes on the radio way too often, I have come to find all the rounded corners off-putting. They are usually a signal of form over function, and often used by information sparse sites. Give me square corners like HackerNews, old Reddit, or Vanguard any day.

The full article goes into the advantages and disadvantages of rounded corners. From the article: + Boxy shapes are commonly seen as reliable, uniform, traditional, and professional. + Round shapes are commonly seen as charismatic, endearing, harmless, and friendly. Sounds like you and the authors would agree.

Yes, I agree with several of the points made in the article.

Re: Why do we round corners?

#13

Post by iqanq »

davidivadavid wrote: post #5
0x7E3 wrote: post #2

> We can all appreciate the aesthetic beauty of rounded corners. Can we? Much like that top 40 song that comes on the radio way too often, I have come to find all the rounded corners off-putting. They are usually a signal of form over function, and often used by information sparse sites. Give me square corners like HackerNews, old Reddit, or Vanguard any day.

Hacker News has rounded corners on its buttons.

Your browser sets those.

Re: Why do we round corners?

#15

Post by mcphage »

mauvehaus wrote: post #6

Because the siege engines will round them off anyway if we make them sharp and our castle ever comes under attack. And our defending archers can better rain arrows down on attackers approaching from any direction from a rounded tower.

Ah, but internal sharp angles are pretty good. Get a nice V to defend against attackers from 2 sides…

Re: Why do we round corners?

#17

Post by Cullinet »

smoldesu wrote: post #7
0x7E3 wrote: post #2

> We can all appreciate the aesthetic beauty of rounded corners. Can we? Much like that top 40 song that comes on the radio way too often, I have come to find all the rounded corners off-putting. They are usually a signal of form over function, and often used by information sparse sites. Give me square corners like HackerNews, old Reddit, or Vanguard any day.

I like a little bit of rounding. Much like gaussian blur, the more subtle the effect, the more appealing it is (imo). Unfortunately, the design trend of over-the-top rounding has started to hit the mainstream and it scares me deeply. Microsoft has started baking-in rounded corners to their displays on Surface products (WHY?!), and MacOS now has more rounded corners than a Fischer-Price product. It's a little ironic t…

you don't think that the new Surface looks good in its own way at least?

I'm sure that it does despite being far from being my aesthetic

I mean I know as soon as I use it it's all disappointment but every time I look at the new Surface I actually want to buy one Windows 11 and all (if I could combine the talent and the means I'd r restore W2K look and feel immediately as by bid for the Nobel economic fake prize award for getting that many people back to working.

Re: Why do we round corners?

#18

Post by nstart »

> Rounded corners also make effective content containers. This is because the rounded corners point inward towards the center of the rectangle. This puts the focus on the contents inside the rectangle. It also makes it easy to see which side belongs to which rectangle when two rectangles are next to each other.

Personally, as a non designer and someone with close to zero natural aesthetic abilities, this single point is the one that resonates. There are some forum tools that used to choose to separate content threads by rectangles. When scrolling through a page quickly it was easy to miss where one thread started and the other finished. After the switch to rounded corners the distinction when moving fast became a lot easier to see.

Re: Why do we round corners?

#20

Post by smoldesu »

Cullinet wrote: post #17
smoldesu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like a little bit of rounding. Much like gaussian blur, the more subtle the effect, the more appealing it is (imo). Unfortunately, the design trend of over-the-top rounding has started to hit the mainstream and it scares me deeply. Microsoft has started baking-in rounded corners to their displays on Surface products (WHY?!), and MacOS now has more rounded corners than a Fischer-Price product. It's a little ironic t…

you don't think that the new Surface looks good in its own way at least? I'm sure that it does despite being far from being my aesthetic I mean I know as soon as I use it it's all disappointment but every time I look at the new Surface I actually want to buy one Windows 11 and all (if I could combine the talent and the means I'd r restore W2K look and feel immediately as by bid for the Nobel economic fake prize award…

It's a waste of screen space. If they want rounded corners, they can add them in software. The average user will have no way of telling the difference.
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