depth first search

I know you probably don’t care about what goes on inside my head most of the time, but here’s a taste anyway. I was rehashing the iPad in my head while perusing my iPod Touch and thinking about the bezel size — a subject of some criticism and a certain amount of defensive posturing:

People are complaining about the wide bezel around the display, but without that, where would your thumbs go? You don’t want your thumb that’s holding the device to cover on-screen content or register as a touch. Trust me, it’s just right.

For some reason I really hate bezels. Well, maybe I don’t hate bezels so much as I admire places where we both expect them and they are somehow missing. The aesthetic I’m after is the infinity edge pool. This is a good example of the kind of random stuff I think about for no reason. Anyway what are the user interface implications of a bezel-less iPad?

If you’re worried about touch, then the solution is easy: no touch sensors in the “bezel” region. Or, better yet, allow touch in the bezel region for touch commands that originate outside the bezel. Even better, ignore touches that result from holding the device. (This assumes that it is possible to classify touches into support and intentional types.) As for obscuring the screen, the right kind of design guidelines could deal with a lot of the problem there. The problem of margin maintenance would move from the hardware to the app designer, shifting a bit of work. But the gain in real estate and the aesthetic power of the bezel-less screen would be huge!