On-Design
Steve Jobs is undeniably one of the greatest innovators of recent history. A key reason for his success was his profound understanding of Design:
In most peoples vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa.
~ Steve Jobs
But to me , nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.
In his view, Design is related to the architectual core of a product and not its mere outward appearance. Indicative of that fact is that Jobs was in favor of an end to end integration across software and hardware to have full control of the customer experience. He was so obsesed with the products quality that he insisted that every part of the Macintosh computer should be beautiful. Even the circuits boards inside should be laid out as elegantly as possible although not visible to the customer.
| Deeper archtictural Design | Outer aesthetic Design |
|---|---|
| Archictural Core that predetermines fundamental characterics of the final product. | Aesthetically pleasing characterics of a product. |
Steve Jobs probably would not be to happy with Apples current innovation speed and some of its design decisions. Take for example the so called magic mouse, which is indeed not so magic as its name suggests: In order to charge it the mouse must be turned to its back. In my view this is an example for bad design. The mouse appears unstable and out of character in this position. Even worse the mouse can't be used whilst in charging mode.
