What is an Avatar component?

An avatar is a representation of a unique entity — like a person, a business, or an object.

1. It is a form of account personalization that doubles as a visual cue for identifying a person or company.

2. It can come in different designs, e.g., initials, emojis, photo-realistic images, icon, logo, or illustrations. These are all considered avatars.

3. It supports badging (usually paired with Badge or Status Dot) to provide more information.

Avatars are commonly used in social media apps today to provide a visual representation of a user's profile. At Mobbin, we also use the avatar component on the top right hand corner to visualize your account's profile.

What is the anatomy of an avatar?

What are the design variants of an avatar image?

We studied over 8200+ avatar UI components on Mobbin, from real-world examples and found the following variants.

1. A default avatar image needs to be considered

When designing for an avatar, it is essential to consider the default avatar empty state. In most cases, we see images, icons, or initials with a grey avatar background color being used.

The most commonly used default avatars are just user icon avatars on a colored background. A grey background is most commonly used.

Avatar components are either in a filled or empty state, depending on whether users uploaded a photo.

We also commonly see initial avatars on colored backgrounds. For example, 'John Smith' would be represented by the initials 'JS'.

2. Avatar shape might vary depending on your brand

The most commonly observed avatar shape is circular.

Followed by squarish avatars like these ones seen in Netflix and Kitchen Stories.

And finally, we've seen funkier avatar shapes in apps like Any Distance.

3. Avatars can be stacked or grouped

If you have a group of avatars that needs to be associated together, it is common to see paired or stacked avatar design patterns.

Pair avatars are common in inboxes, or groups.

Stacked avatars are common for larger groups, rooms, or spaces.

When to use an avatar component?

Profile management

Avatars can be used to manage user or group profiles in a mobile app. This profile management can include viewing, creating, updating, and deleting user profiles, as well as setting and changing user preferences.

Social media

Avatars can be used to provide a visual representation of the number of users on a social media app. For example, avatars are used to show how many users are part of a particular community or group.