Way back sometime in 2004, SONY were making Palm OS based PDAs. The UX50 model's screen were small and packed the maximum pixels then and due to their mini size they designed the outer shell that supported the screen border - black in colour while the whole device was in a metal shade. This helped reading the small screen easier. (Google images: SONY PEG UX50)
Apple's macbook pro also followed this design with black screen bezel. (Google images: Apple MacBook Pro 2.53GHz) A look into the study behind this design shift that went on then could help find how the 'lightbox' convention started. My guess is that, following the above darkening of background elements to help the user focus on a given area of the screen, portions starting from the screen bezel were extended (darkened). This sort of may be seen as an extended concept of what SONY and Apple researched about much earlier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=44487 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
