

Ask HN: why are there no angular lines in online UI/UX - samstave

Thinking about it recently - why are there no angular lines in the UI of everything online...<p>There appear to be only grid-based tables.<p>While there could be a UI/UX where the screen real estate is cut in an angular way.<p>It would be interesting to experiment with this as I think that certain types of data could be central - but others could be trimmed to the corners of a screen and do not need to be presented in a square and flat table.<p>Any thoughts?
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piotr_krzyzek
Angular as in circles, rounded corners, spheres and generally not grid based
designs?

Originally the idea came out of necessity. Computers cannot do circles. They
can just do many-MANY-edged 'things' that appear as circles to us.

If you draw a simple circle in your favourite graphics program (not a vector
image), save and it and zoom in; you'll notice pixels right? Well, those are
the edges/lines that I was talking about.

Also, put three blocks in a row. They will be more space efficient for putting
stuff into than three spheres/circles in that same area. That is why a circle
of Diameter D can fit into a cube whose dimensions are DxDxD and still have
room to spare.

Squares (which is what pixels on your monitor are anyway ... usually at least)
are simply more space effiecient.

Though many designs do use circles to enhance or bring to attention a certain
topic, message or idea.

You can though create a 'angular' design. But it'll be very much so on the
creative side of things and won't fit most standard uses.

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lazugod
Because digital screens are rectangles and the native DOM elements are
rectangles. And raw photos are rectangles. And the books and posters and signs
and paintings that web designers emulate are rectangles.

