More often than not, users have the ability to upload a picture or connect with a service like Gravatar to use their existing picture. This discovery and experience I'm sharing is specifically around the fallback or the default scenario of user avatars.
When we look at some existing products, such as some of Google's services, we can see a coloured circle-the colour of which appears to be random-and a letter (initial) or two. Apple does the same with its Mail and Contacts, but defaults to a grey (unless you choose to assign a coloured circle and initials to one of your contacts who doesn't have a picture).
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