Bubble or Square?

As designers, much of our work involves helping and making it easier for users to make sense of the information in front of them.

One way we do this is by using rounded corners within a design. Rounded corners are more appealing than their counterparts because they are kinder on the eye. This makes this information easier to understand and 'nicer' to look at.

According to a Professor Nänni article:

“...A rectangle with sharp edges takes indeed a little bit more cognitive visible effort than for example an ellipse of the same size. Our “fovea-eye” is even faster in recording a circle. Edges involve additional neuronal image tools. The process is therefore slowed down.” Professor Nänni is saying that rounded rectangles are literally easier on the eye. Put another way, compared to square-edged rectangles, rounded rectangles are more computationally efficient for the human brain. To me, this is a revelation."

 

But, is the rounded rectangle always the solution? I feel that they are sometimes appropriate, sometimes not, and often over used. Like gradients, rounded corners are easier to look at and so attract less attention, but corners, like edges in general attract more attention and our visual system exaggerates them.

So, maybe we should use squared not rounded corners if we want to attract attention? A good example of this is when we use gagged arrows to draw attention to featured aspects in a design.

An idea that, at the very least, demands more investigation.