A belief in Design
Design is a fundamental human activity, applying purpose and values to technology and resources in order to organize materials and activities to fashion our tools, our environments, and even our societies and ourselves.
Quotations
“Design is not Appearance”
Design is not appearance, but a way of thinking about information and conveying ideas to others. That’s really what I do. I am so interested in having ideas. That idea that your role in the culture is to inform and delight is so sweet. Not to persuade, not to persuade!
Milton Glaser, from the interview “Design is Not Appearance: My Interview with Milton Glaser”, 27 Jun 2020
“Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation”
In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. 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.
Steve Jobs, from the interview “Apple's One-Dollar-a-Year Man”, January 24, 2000
“Economics is essentially a question of design”
Economics, it turns out, is not a matter of discovering laws: it is essentially a question of design.
Kate Raworth, from the book Doughnut Economics: 7 Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist, 2017, © Kate Raworth
“Engineer and designer need to party together”
Prior to Steve Jobs’ return to Apple, there was a decent centralized usability team equipped with those fancy rooms with one-way mirrors and video cameras. I’m certain these folks did significant work, but when Jobs returned, he shut it down and he cast the design teams to the wind. Each product team inherited part of the former usability team.
Now, I arrived after this reorganization occurred, so I don’t know the actual reasoning, but I do know I never saw those usability labs used once and I would argue that in the past decade Apple has created some of the most usable products out there. My opinion is that the choice to spread the usability design function across the engineering team was intended to send a clear message: engineer and designer need to party more… together.
I can’t imagine building a team responsible for consumer products where engineers and designers weren’t constantly meddling in each other’s business. Yes, they often argue from completely opposite sides of the brain. Yes, it is often a battle of art and science, but engineering and design want exactly the same thing. They want the intense satisfaction of knowing they successfully built something that matters.
Michael Lopp, from the book Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager, 2007
“We have wonderful arguments”
Jobs: What I do all day is meet with teams of people and work on ideas and solve problems to make new products, to make new marketing programs, whatever it is.
Mossberg: And are people willing to tell you you’re wrong?
Jobs: (laughs) Yeah.
Mossberg: I mean, other than snarky journalists, I mean people that work for…
Jobs: Oh, yeah, no we have wonderful arguments.
Mossberg: And do you win them all?
Jobs: Oh no I wish I did. No, you see you can’t. If you want to hire great people and have them stay working for you, you have to let them make a lot of decisions and you have to, you have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy. The best ideas have to win, otherwise good people don’t stay.
Mossberg: But you must be more than a facilitator who runs meetings. You obviously contribute your own ideas.
Jobs: I contribute ideas, sure. Why would I be there if I didn’t?
Steve Jobs, from D8 Conference, 06/07/2010