Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs

by Ken Kocienda

To begin this discussion, I have identified seven elements essential to Apple’s software success: Inspiration: Thinking big ideas and imagining what might be possible Collaboration: Working together well with other people and seeking to combine your complementary strengths Craft: Applying skill to achieve high-quality results and always striving to do better Diligence: Doing the necessary grunt work and never resorting to shortcuts or half measures Decisiveness: Making tough choices and refusing to delay or procrastinate Taste: Developing a refined sense of judgment and finding the balance that produces a pleasing and integrated whole Empathy: Trying to see the world from other people’s perspectives and creating work that fits into their lives and adapts to their needs

This push for simplicity had a purpose. Even though he was a high-tech CEO, Steve could put himself in the shoes of customers, people who cared nothing for the ins and outs of the software industry. He never wanted Apple software to overload people, especially when they might already be stretched by the bustle of their everyday lives.

These questions became moot, and that’s good, because they don’t necessarily have easy answers.

In the same way, software demos need to be convincing enough to explore an idea, to communicate a step toward making a product, even though the demo is not the product itself. Like the movie, demos should be specifically choreographed, so it’s clear what must be included and what can be left out. Those things that aren’t the main focus of a demo, but are required to create the proper setting, must be realized at the correct level of detail so they contribute to the whole rather than detract from the vision.

Over time, Don and I began to understand and absorb the model Richard showed us. Look for ways to make quick progress. Watch for project stalls that might indicate a lack of potential. Cut corners to skip unnecessary effort. Remove distractions to focus attention where it needs to be. Start approximating your end goal as soon as possible. Maximize the impact of your most difficult effort. Combine inspiration, decisiveness, and craft to make demos.

It sounds simple, and it was, but the way Edison defined the project also gave it a shape. He crossed off items from a to-do list.

a significant part of attaining excellence in any field is closing the gap between the accidental and intentional, to achieve not just a something or even an everything but a specific and well-chosen thing, to take words and turn them into a vision, and then use the vision to spur the actions that create the results.

directly responsible individual (we pronounced it as D-R-I in conversation), the person who has to do whatever is necessary to develop a piece of hardware or software, some technology, some critically needed thing—the DRI was the person with their butt on the line.

Then, in follow-up code change reviews with them, I made demos that showed how their advice was leading to specific bug fixes—making

“I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”

I hadn’t realized how much I relied on writing code to feel productive and happy.

If brainstorms run longer than an hour or so, or if there are more than a handful of people in attendance, or if they’re a common occurrence, they can devolve into a form of sneaky procrastination.

Whiteboard discussions feel like work, but often they’re not, since it’s too difficult to talk productively about ideas in the abstract. Think of a cute puppy.

Over time, I came to the conclusion that designing an excellent user experience was as much about preventing negative experiences as facilitating positive ones.

Taste is developing a refined sense of judgment and finding the balance that produces a pleasing and integrated whole.

We didn’t shuffle around printed specifications or unchanging paper mock-ups for weeks on end, waiting for an epiphany that would jump us directly from an early-stage concept to a complete product design, hoping we could somehow flip the ratio of inspiration to perspiration Thomas Edison spoke about, the relationship between the time it takes to get an idea and the amount of hard work it takes to transform that idea into something real.

You could design for looks, or for fashion, or for some abstract ideal instead of designing for how a product works.

We used the word “heuristics” to describe aspects of software development that tip toward the liberal arts. Its counterpart, “algorithms,” was its alter ego on the technical side. Heuristics and algorithms are like two sides of the same coin.