Apple’s Design Process
No discussion of innovation and design would be complete without
examining BusinessWeek’s perennial “No.1 Most Innovative Company,”
Apple. Both Apple’s product and service design prowess are
legendary. Michael Lopp, senior engineering manager at Apple,
describes his company’s approach to design as delivering a series
of presents to the customer, “really good ideas wrapped up in other
really good ideas” (i.e., pioneering software in elegant hardware
in beautiful packaging) to replicate that Christmas morning
experience. Apple moves fast, constantly innovates, and is never
satisfied. More than understanding customer needs, they anticipate
what will delight customers in the future. Although Apple has
received many design accolades, little is known about their design
process. Four of their techniques, presented below, were revealed
during a panel discussion at a recent SXSW (South-by-Southwest)
Interactive Conference.
• Pixel Perfect Mockups Detailed
mockups (e.g., prototypes) take a long time to construct but
prevent misunderstandings and mistakes later on in the process.
• 10 to 3 to 1 Designers create ten
completely different detailed mock-ups which are then reduced to
three. After several more months of work, those three are reduced
to one final design. Not many companies would be willing to discard
90% of their design work to come up with the perfect design.
• Paired Design Meetings Every week
the engineers and designers have two meetings—a brainstorming
meeting with no-holds-barred free thinking, and a production
meeting to critique ideas and decide how to make them work. This
continues throughout the development process. It is highly unusual
to encourage creative thinking in the later stages of a design, or
to start over when better ideas are generated, something CEO Steve
Jobs has been known to do.
• Pony Meetings Top managers are
famous for the “I want a pony” syndrome of pie-in-the-sky ideas.
Design teams have regular meetings with execs to inform them of
pony status and to keep them in the loop during the design process.
This eliminates surprises and disappointments later on.
The Apple design team of 20 people is quite small, with an
international flair of German, British, New Zealand, and Italian
designers, in addition to U.S. designers. Design chief Jonathan
Ives prefers to invest his dollars in state-of the- art prototyping
equipment rather than large numbers of people. However, these
designers work closely with engineers, marketers, and manufacturing
contractors in Asia who actually build the products. Not
surprisingly, Apple is a leading innovator in materials, tooling,
and manufacturing technology such as injection molding, as well as
electronic technology.
Apple gloats that it does no market research, nor does it spread
risk by diversifying its products. Instead Apple concentrates its
resources on just a few products and makes them extremely well.
They use their own technology and take the time to immerse
themselves in the user experience. The process begins by asking,
“What do we hate? What do we have the technology to do? What would
we like to own?” Meticulous designers take it from there—designers
who dream up products so ingenious that whole industries are
upended.
Instructions: Going by the facts of the
above case, please write your answers in minimum 500 words
each.
Q1. Critically examine and explain how the four design steps
adopted by apple is the right way of product design. Support your
answer with example wherever necessary.
Q 2. Going by the case, do you think Apple by focusing on a
narrow product line, is following a good design strategy. Explain
your answer with examples. (Minimum 500 words)
Sources: Betsy Morris, “What Makes Apple Golden,”
Fortune, (March 3, 2008); Alain Breillatt, “You Can’t
Innovate Like Apple,”posted March 21, 2008, retrieved from
http://pictureimperfect.net/
2008/03/21/you-cant-innovate-like-apple/; Helen/Walters, “Apple’s
Design Process,” BusinessWeek Online (March 2008),
retrieved from
http://www.businessweek.com/thwe_thread/techbeat/archives/2008/03/
apples_design_p.html; M.G. Siegler, “The Wonders of Apple’s
Tablet,” The Washington Post (December 25, 2009).
All students are advised to use their own words.
Plagiarism is not allowed.
The work that includes copying from other resource without
referencing it, is not at all accepted.
Give the proper citation to your work.
A zero grade will be awarded for late submission.
Last date of Submission is end of Week

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