Apple’s design philosophy is one of the best, their products
are simply beautiful. Everything about them personifies simplicity and ease of
use. It is something I have always admired about Apple’s products. Think about
the polish of iOS in comparison the Androids hard edges. I wanted to talk about
how and why Apple does it better.
Apple’s design philosophy filters down from Steve Jobs. This
can be dated back to the smiling Mac icon to resemble a human face. One of
Apple’s earliest employees once said “To
be honest, we didn’t know what it meant for a computer to be ‘friendly’ until
Steve told us.” In a time where computers were often feared about their
potential, Jobs provided a friendly and interactive interface which encouraged
users to engage. Friendliness is an important principle which allows users to
want to interactive with a UI. They can gain pleasure and satisfaction from
using it.
Another key design principle which is studied to date is
Jobs realised that for computers to be easy to use their UI’s had to be based
upon metaphors. If you look as far back to iOS 5 the newsstand, notes,
reminders and settings all have visual metaphors which allow the user to
intuitively navigate the UI with ease. The geeky technical term for all this
was a skeuomorphic user interface. Skeuomorphism is a term most often used in GUI
design to describe interface objects that mimic their real-world
counterparts in how they appear and/or how the user can interact with them. Of
course design has changed since that point and a more minimalist design has
grown in popularity. This again has been echoed by the latest iOS 11. However
at the tem of iOS 5 Apple were ahead of the game.
Another great principle which Jonathon Ive, Apple’s chief design
officer speaks about is care. He states “We
stand testament to us desperately trying to make the very best product we can
because we know someone is going to sit down and stare at this screen and he
will sense the care that went in to it.” The level of detail and effort put
in to every aspect of design in to Apple’s products can be seen at every inch
of the product. From where the camera is placed to the text size. Apple don’t
assemble off the shelf components. Everything Apple makes is in house and is
made specifically for the job at hand.
I think the most important reason as to why Apple is so successful
at design is Steve Jobs really thought about the consumer. He always thought
about who he was creating the product for? How are they going to use this
system? Apple designed products around this they created innovative products
that you simply couldn’t live without. Steve Jobs states “What incredible
benefits can we give to the customer, where can we take the customer, not
starting with let’s sit down with the engineers and see what awesome technology
we have and figure out how we market that?” That single principle should be the
basis of every company. This consumer centric approach is the reason behind Apple’s great success.
To conclude Apple’s design process and ethos is one of the world’s
best. Yes it results in products which are very expensive but they create
products that users demand, they want, they need. Apple’s consumers are loyal
because of this, which is very rare to see in a competitive market. They think
about every little detail and enforce their principles consistently across
every product they make from the iPhone to the iPad. Anyone can pick up any
Apple product and immediately know how to use it. That is not an easy thing to
do but Apple does it best.
Follow @EdwardMuldrew
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