You can Design just like Apple
Apple is a superior company when it comes to mobile devices, such as smart phones, laptops, iPads and more. They’re simple, sleek designs are attractive to many and the quality of their products is unmatched. I personally have an iPhone, iPad, MacBook and AirPods, and I love them all. Apple is known for dropping new and improved products each year that many people want to get their hands on. But how are they able to create such user-friendly, high-quality, eye-appealing products? There is a strategic process that is followed, as you will read about below.
“Designing something requires focus. The first thing we ask is ‘How do we want people to feel?’” (Apple 2014)
Step One: Ideas
This is the very beginning of the process where important managers discuss their ideas for new products and begin forming initial sketches. There is not yet a complete product idea, only rough ideas and sketches in order to compile as many ideas as possible.
Step Two: Product Start-Up/Prototyping
Since Apple is a product-based company, many prototypes are made and tested within the design process. The product start-up phase is where a specific idea is chosen and, separately from the rest of the team, they work on the development and logistics. After the idea is ironed out, the team begins prototyping. This is where mock-up products are produced. For this stage, Apple uses the “10 to 3 to 1” approach, which is as follows:
- Design team has creative freedom to produce 10 designs
- Three concepts are chosen as finalists
- Select one final product to use for the remainder of the process
Step Three: Executive Team Review/Peer Design Meetings
To help achieve goals and keep things running smoothly and efficiently, the executive team meets every Monday to go over the production process inside the company. This ensures that everyone is on the same page by reviewing small parts of the process on a weekly basis. Additionally, peer review meetings take place between the design team and the engineers that are focused on improving the design idea.
Step Four: Testing the Product
After the product is produced, this is the stage where it is tested and the company obtains reviews and feedbacks from executives. This process can go round and round multiple times in order to ensure Apple’s high-quality standards that are known by customers.
Step Five: Packaging
Packaging is very important when designing a product. It is a very useful tool to attract customers and allow a positive customer experience. At this stage, the packaging is designed and tested on the products. One aspect that Apple focuses on when creating packaging is how the product opens.
Step Six: Rules of the Road
This is a very secret document that is completed upon reaching the end of the design process. It is an evaluation of the entire process and the achievements that they made along the way. It ensures the quality of the design process and also the product.
After reviewing the design process that Apple conducts in order to produce their products, there is no doubt that they are keenly focused on producing high-quality devices. The design team takes their time during the process and produces many prototypes in order to ensure satisfaction for the customer. It may seem like a simple process, but it is very time-consuming, as they only release new products once a year. If you are interested in reading more about the internal work of Apple, there is a whole book written about it called Inside Apple, shown below.
