Lately I've been contemplating the value of rounded corners in design. Is it eye-candy? Or does it add value to the user experience?
Let me put it this way:
I hope it is clear that the rounded corners do make a difference. On the left side, you see one surface devided by a line. On the right side you see two adjoining boxes. The difference? Only the rounded corners.
How does that translate into color? Lines can easily be interpreted as contrasts. If we do so, we get the following image:
Again: on the left one surface, on the right two boxes. The unity of shape and color forms an image.
BTW: I hate it that the blogging software (Movable Type) draws a box around my illustrations. In this case it pretty much destroys the effect. However, I'm not well versed in CSS, so I'm afraid I'll have to live with it...

Comments (5)
For the CSS... in mt-static/themes/221chameleon/221chameleon.css, look for a line that says ".entry-body p img" and change the "border: 1px..." to "border: 0px..."!
And keep up the good posts! :)
Posted by GBUK | June 5, 2008 2:10 PM
Posted on June 5, 2008 14:10
I kinda subconsciously felt that rounded corners were better, but your side by side examples are eye opening!
Posted by Debbie Goodrow | June 6, 2008 4:23 AM
Posted on June 6, 2008 04:23
I understand and agree with the gestalt behind your conclusions. Did you have to bias it by using two similar shades of soothing blues for one case and contrasting harsh colors for the other?
Posted by Jon Peltier | June 18, 2008 5:02 PM
Posted on June 18, 2008 17:02
About the css, you could just add this line in the css file:
img {border:0 !important}
but this will hide borders on ALL images on this site.
You might also want to consider switching to WordPress :)
Interesting posts, btw.
Posted by scribu | August 7, 2008 1:27 AM
Posted on August 7, 2008 01:27
Wow — I've never thought about it this way, but now it makes perfect sense. This is very interesting.
Posted by Dmitry | August 19, 2008 12:24 AM
Posted on August 19, 2008 00:24