We’re headed towards more roundness to invite a friendlier brand tone, and to make Mastodon feel more native within modern browsers (most of which have adopted a rounded aesthetic).
“invite a friendlier brand tone” - This sounds like some sort of marketing-speak. What does it mean?
“feel more native within modern browsers (most of which have adopted a rounded aesthetic)” - The same rounded aesthetic I keep seeing in posts where people ask how to roll it back or otherwise remove it? I’ve also tried to get rid of it in cases where there’s been something like a frame added around the window, hiding part of the site, which is the thing I actually want to see.
Just… stop already with making everything rounder, please. It feels like yet more modern corporate “New and Improved! (actually things are worse now)” being shoved down my throat.
At the very least, give us an option to switch it off. A toggle between sharp and rounded, so you have your padded room vibe to make you look “safe” by default, and let those of us who want something functional turn it off. >.<
One of the things I like about Mastodon is that it’s a refuge from the tendency of the rest of the web to be kinda “other apps were making their text yellow so we’ve modernised our app by making our text yellow”
It’s a detail, yet I signed up just to upvote / support this feedback …
the “modern browsers” are going down a very dark path. Why follow their bizarre aesthetic then? I just want a sober user experience.
All the roundness is a waste of valuable screen space. Maybe this (and usable scrollbars that don’t auto-hide!) should be an option under preferences …
This is a bit off-topic, but we’re not doing anything special to our scrollbars that would cause them to auto-hide. You can probably change this behaviour in your operating system settings (e.g. on macOS, you can set “Show scroll bars” to “Always”).
I understand the instinct to be skeptical of anything that sounds like design-team marketing speak, and I share the Fediverse’s general allergy to corporate homogenization. But I’d like to offer a counter-perspective on why modern rounded UI isn’t just aesthetic fluff or “following the herd.”
A few practical reasons why this direction makes sense:
Visual ergonomics and eye tracking: The human visual cortex processes curves faster and with less cognitive friction than sharp 90-degree corners. Sharp angles actively pull the eye outward toward the vertices (points), creating subtle visual noise across dense feeds. Rounded contours naturally direct focus inward toward the actual content – the text, media, and avatars.
The “wasted screen space” myth: A border radius on a card or button doesn’t consume usable content space. Text layout and line length are rectangular regardless of corner geometry, what dictates density is typographic rhythm, line height, and padding. A post with rounded corners holds the exact same amount of text as a square one.
Modern web standards ≠ corporate capture: High-DPI screens, modern CSS primitives, and fluid component systems allow interfaces to feel continuous with contemporary OS environments. Open-source software doesn’t need to stay frozen in a utilitarian 2012 aesthetic just to prove it isn’t Big Tech. Looking cohesive, intentional, and inviting is how open platforms lower friction for newcomers without sacrificing technical substance.
Having good theme options or density toggles is always welcome in open-source software, but making the default experience polished, visually calm, and native-feeling is a solid step forward for Mastodon.
All logical, rational reasons, and they might even be fully accurate, BUT!
I’m a human being. I am not wholly logical or rational.
I have clearly stated my dislike of the ever-encroaching roundness.
I have tried, probably poorly, to show I’m not the only person who doesn’t like or want it, without just a baseless “there are many of us”.
I do not like this. I do not want this. I feel alienated, on a platform that has become a refuge from the bulldickery of other social media.
And I still don’t know what “invite a friendlier brand tone” means.
That’s completely fair, and I respect the honesty. Aesthetic preferences aren’t purely mathematical formulas; they’re gut reactions, and feeling like a space that was your refuge is drifting toward the very aesthetic you were trying to escape is genuinely frustrating.
To answer what “invite a friendlier brand tone” actually means without the marketing gloss: it usually means making the software feel less intimidating to people who aren’t power users. Interfaces with sharp 90-degree corners, dense borders, and high contrast can feel clinical or like an administrative console. To experienced power users, that feels sober and functional; to someone stepping away from mainstream platforms for the first time, it can feel cold and exclusionary. The design intent isn’t to patronize users, but to lower visual friction at the front door.
That said, I’m just a fellow community member – I don’t speak for the maintainers and can’t promise what settings or toggles will ultimately ship. But in open-source software, major UI shifts often require a bit of patience while the dust settles. Redesigns almost always roll out the foundational baseline first, followed by accessibility refinements, density options, and layout polish informed by community feedback.
On commercial platforms, a redesign is a corporate mandate where user feedback disappears into a void. In an open ecosystem, having a modern, accessible default doesn’t have to mean leaving power users behind. Giving the team a little patience and constructive feedback to iterate is how open source balances broad appeal with user agency.
Like you (I think?), I’ve always thought rounded corners have pleasantly helped define rectangular elements through computing and Web history. Unlike individual8, I don’t think you’re asking for every rectangular element to be perfectly rectangular.
What I’ve been observing lately is that the radii of those rounded corners have increased beyond the point of having accomplished the goal of pleasantly helping define those elements, and seem to continue to increase. It’s begun to feel like designers have accepted the idea that more roundedness is good design just because it’s more, and have parted ways with their own ability to know or explain why. Users are spending these years on some level perceiving that.
I suppose I’d ask a designer: let’s take the new Mastodon feed element. If you don’t believe its corners are currently too round, how much roundedness would be too much? How do you know? (Hopefully that’s potentially constructive?)
I also think the corners are a bit too rounded now. It was 4px before, and now it’s 16px. Maybe it could be somewhere in the middle at 8px or 10px. Here’s what 8px would look like:
We’ve just had this from Firefox, talking like they imagine billions of people thinking “I was using Chrome because I found the less round corners of Firefox’s tabs intimidating, but now they’ve changed it to make them even rounder than Chrome’s I’ve switched.” I just find it very it hard to imagine that that’s how humans are.
Meanwhile I’ve been using Waterfox with the Classic Theme Restorer add-on to make it look like the old, old style.
Proper title bar! Menu bar! URL bar and buttons above the tabs! Corners on the tabs rounded just barely enough to help with visual differentiation between them!
I only use chrome-based stuff when a website for whatever reason refuses to work properly outside of it.
I came here, because for me – with my peculiar autistic perception – the new rounder design is very tiresome. I really hope to find a way to change the appearance through browser features. Mastodon was one place, where I could still escape this.
If other people like it, they can keep it, for me it’s not about a feeling of making everything look alike is wrong, it is simply more tiresome/difficult to use. I would like the possibility to customize it, like we often have contrast for some seeing disabilities.
I’m personally a fan of rounded, maybe a bit less rounded than this, but definitely rounded. And I fully grasp that we will all bring our own idiosyncratic preferences to a conversation like this.
But if I were making a decision to impact a million people every day, I’d go to the data, to the best practice, and let that lead me. Here’s what my non-expert research gave me for background:
I absolutely do not get the “I am sorry you have a recognized disability but since millions of other people don’t, just let’s do it how abled people prefer it”.
If that’s referring to my comment, I absolutely do not have that position; my belief is that academic research and industry best practice by definition will lead the way to accommodating a broad range of accessibility issues.
Exactly, one of the many reasons why I like Waterfox. We can have squares with just enough rounded pixels to easy off the abrupt sharpness there. With Waterfox you can choose to turn off complete roundness. I would like Mastodon to have this option, too.
