Steve Jobs: Audience Centered Design

Steve Jobs is the wildly successful leader of Apple. Recent product launches include innovative and pervasive technologies such as the iPhone, the iPod, and the series of MacBook laptops. How did he get such insight into what the consumer wants?

I believe it is user centered design.

I study and mentor graduate students in the Interaction Design Practicum class. The professor spoke of using personas and user tests as a way to prevent students from inevitably designing objects that are for people like themselves. He said it doesn't work well if you design for yourself. One student asked about Steve Jobs. The student said Steve Jobs considers himself the user, and designs for himself.

Well... that's not actually correct. Steve Jobs is a tech-geek billionaire. Yet Apple and Steve Jobs focus on a home computer market. IBM and Microsoft still dominate the workplace, where people *have to learn* the software their bosses bought. It doesn't matter how unpleasant the experience of use is. Employees *have* to do it. Apple focuses on the home -- where there is no "I.T. guy" to save you, no help desk, and no co-workers with the same product. There is only you.

Steve Jobs thought about *that* lone person. Or *that* lone family. What do they need? Ease of use. Positive interaction. Something that doesn't make me feel dumb but makes me feel techno-uber-savvy. I have sources and citations, but I'll talk about this often. For now it's enough to note that thinking of the user in context is what may enable them to have such success as computers step out of both our offices and our homes, and step into our pockets and cell phones. He understands the needs of the user in context.

Steve Jobs doesn't design for himself, guys. He'd be making platinum covered space shuttles. Steve Jobs designs for moms and dads in their homes. And that, is user in context.