On June 10, Apple opened the WWDC with a short video that is a testament to design embedded in every single element of the company.
Few, but relevant, words: the values the company lives by. Pure design thinking stronger than any vision / mission / strategy statement you can imagine. The enduring ideas informing product development and customer experience that made Apple… Apple. Focus and selectivity come first. And this goes back to the early days of Job’s comeback to rescue a dying company, when he cut dozens of products lines and development projects. Making choices, being selective, is one the most difficult management task, but the wrong choice (to be amended) is always better than wasting resources trying to please everyone.
Then it’s about delighting with superior customer experience, surprising with the unexpected. And being satisfied with nothing less than the extraordinary.
Easy, isn’t it?
if everyone is busy making everything
how can anyone perfect anything?
we start to confuse convenience with joy
abundance with choice.
designing something requires focus
the first thing we ask is
what do we want people to feel?
delight surprise love connection
then we begin to craft around our intention
it takes time…
there are a thousand no’s for every yes.
we simplify we perfect we start over
until everything we touch enhances each life it touches.
only then do we sign our work.
2 Comments
The question is IMHO whether Apple has survived its founding values and will be as relevant going forward as it has been in these last 10 years.
Paul Krugman recently used AAPL as the epytome of “Profits without products”, meaning its brand and user experience are so strong allowing it to charge essentially what the market will bear, without any relationship to the intrinsic value of the product.
An incredibly profitable positioning, but incredibly fragile: being based only on perceptions, perceptions will make it soar or sink.
Gianni, INHO (love it!) nobody has the answer to the big question: will Apple bring in the next five years disruptive products that will change our life as iPod, iPhone, iPad did? That’s the point people like “Professor of Macroeconomics” (sic!!!) Krugman is debating: three products that changed out life. A company is lucky if ever gets one in 100 years, they got three in 10 years. That’s why everybody is expecting and pushing for iWatch, iTV, iWhatever. And reading the “Intention” manifesto, Apple is just saying: we could bring to the market all of these iJunk products, but we choose not to, until we have something really great.
But my point is a different, and to answer Mr. Krugman: is there anything else than “user experience”? no, there isn’t. That’s all: designing the perfect user experience; and possibly, re-invent it.