Interesting
presentation at SXSW from Michael Lopp, senior
engineering manager at Apple, who tried to assess how Apple can ‘get’ design
when so many other companies try and fail. After describing Apple’s process of
delivering consumers with a succession of presents (“really good ideas wrapped
up in other really good ideas” — in other words, great software in fabulous
hardware in beautiful packaging), he asked the question many have asked in
their time: “How do you do that?” Then he went into a few details:
Pixel
Perfect Mockups
This, Lopp admitted, causes a huge amount of work and
takes an enormous amount of time. But, he added, “it
removes all ambiguity.” That might add time up front, but it removes the need
to correct mistakes later on.
10 to 3
to 1
Apple designers come up with 10 entirely different mock ups of any new feature.
Not, Lopp said, "seven in order to make three
look good", which seems to be a fairly standard practice elsewhere.
They'll take ten, and give themselves room to design without restriction. Later
they whittle that number to three, spend more months on those three and then
finally end up with one strong decision.
Paired
Design Meetings
This was really interesting. Every week, the teams
have two meetings. One in which to brainstorm, to forget
about constraints and think freely. As Lopp
put it: to "go crazy". Then they also hold a production meeting, an
entirely separate but equally regular meeting which is the other's antithesis.
Here, the designers and engineers are required to nail everything down, to work
out how this crazy idea might actually work. This process and organization
continues throughout the development of any app, though of course the balance
shifts as the app progresses. But keeping an option for creative thought even
at a late stage is really smart.
Pony
Meeting
This refers to a story Lopp
told earlier in the session, in which he described the process of a senior
manager outlining what they wanted from any new application: "I want
WYSIWYG... I want it to support major browsers... I want it to reflect the
spirit of the company." Or, as Lopp put it:
"I want a pony!" He added: "Who doesn't? A pony is
gorgeous!" The problem, he said, is that these people are describing what
they think they want. And even if they're misguided, they, as the ones signing
the checks, really cannot be ignored.
The solution, he
described, is to take the best ideas from the paired design meetings and
present those to leadership, who might just decide that some of those ideas are,
in fact, their longed-for ponies. In this way, the ponies morph into
deliverables. And the C-suite, who are quite reasonable in wanting to know what
designers are up to, and absolutely entitled to want to have a say in what's
going on, are involved and included. And that helps to ensure that there are no
nasty mistakes down the line.