YouTube Rolls out Curved Edges for Video Player

As developers and designers, we all have that one thing on a website that bugs us. A wrongly-sized typeface may be a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but we still wish we could alter it to satisfy our desire for perfection.

Do we ever get to make the change? In most cases, no. We’re simply left to sit and think about what could’ve been. “If only I’d tried to convince them harder”, you think. “I could have jumped in the code and finally fixed that misaligned button”. Unfortunately, making minor tweaks to polish a website’s aesthetic is often more wishful thinking than reality.

Well, I’d like to think one stubborn developer just got their wish granted. YouTube is replacing its right-angled video player with a version that has rounded corners.

Was this actually the work of a single determined developer desperately pushing to change a small detail of YouTube’s layout? Probably not. But the change is so tiny it’s hard to believe this could be anything but an aesthetic alteration.

To its credit, the curves do make the video player look nicer. They align nicely with the new curved thumbnails, giving the whole webpage a more polished look. If you currently can’t see the change yet, it’ll be coming to your screens very shortly.

Shelley Cooke

Shelley Cooke is a blogger and podcaster from Asheville, North Carolina (Go Oilers!). She’s passionate about technology and the role it plays in building communities.