In addition the perceived size issue @elberet mentioned, there is a recognition concern that you should keep in mind as well. Take for example, the following potential avatars:
Easily distinguishable as square avatars. But you round them, and:
Suddenly you can’t see the difference between the two. Now I’ve obviously designed this set of images to emphasize the problem. The much more likely scenario is that you have two users with similar avatars that are different enough for recognition as square avatars. When the avatars are rounded, they may still be distinct, but much less so because unique features get cropped out.
Another issue is that the rounding may crop out all or part of the focal point of a user’s avatar. The idea of rounding assumes that the focal point of a user’s avatar is going to be at or near the center, when that may not be the case.
If you are determined to use the rounded avatars in the topic lists, you will need to provide users with the following:
- A rounded preview of their avatar when a new avatar is uploaded. This is a must, as no user will want to upload multiple times just to see how the rounding affects their avatars.
- A way to modify how the avatar is displayed in the rounded format. This could basically just be a UI to allow the user to re-center the image so that the parts of the avatar that are most important to them are displayed when the avatar is rounded.