The cognitive neuroscience types tell me my brain is physically optimized for detecting angles in preference to curves, but that I find curves more reassuring and pleasurable. This implies that @miasm is right and circular avatars pessimize recognition in order to optimize aesthetics. Persons with certain forms of agnosia will display atypical responses, of course, and frankly I haven’t done the experiments (got no fMRI access any more!) so it’s all hearsay to me.
But assuming that the above is true, that might explain my own mild preference for square avatars. I find that the form of function is almost always aesthetically pleasing to me, even when it means things have pointy bits, and the function of avatars is recognition.
One of the tricks magicians employ to hide a move in a hand whilst doing close up magic is to move that hand through a curve. It’s more difficult for the eye to quickly adjust and track something through multiple dimensions. You can ‘hide’ the move (palming or whatever) under the veil of neurological lag.
I’ve been reading up on CSS3 and once this controversy over discourse putting round frames around avatars dies down, I am going to make avatars a nearly completely annoying star shape just to mess with y’all
That’s the entirety of my design suggestion. At least for the BBS. Back and forward are basically broken in the dynamically loading mobile site. I’d rather manually refresh than have it be dynamic. A link to BoingBoing home from the BBS would be real nice… don’t know why you got rid of it.
I thought of another argument in favor of square avatars — anyone who wants a circular (or rounded or star-shaped) one can still have it by putting a round graphic on a blank square background.
