Chapter 50 Section 3 Perfectionism

When Michael Lopp, a senior manager at Apple, answered why Apple can design so many cool products, he introduced two key points in Apple's product design process: Perfect prototype: Apple requires that even the design prototype of the product must be realized flawlessly.Take software user interface design as an example, every pixel of the prototype interface must be carefully considered to achieve a perfect appearance.Obviously, this requires more time and energy in the design phase, but it also avoids ambiguity and uncertainty in decision-making and reduces subsequent iterations. 10 → 3 → 1: In the beginning, Apple's designers usually start with 10 or so different solutions, and then find 3 clearly better ones.Although the goal is to find 3 candidate solutions, starting with 10 solutions can give the designer more flexibility and not tie the designer's hands and feet in the initial stage.Designers then usually spend a longer time discussing those 3 alternatives and finally picking the best one.

As Ropp said, Apple requires designers to be the ultimate in the initial stage of design. "Pursuing perfection" is the creed that Apple's designers have been talking about since they entered the company. Of course, the weight of this sentence is not exactly the same for different people.For ordinary designers, perfectionism may be just an idealized goal, which can be pursued but not forced.But for the boss Jobs, perfectionism is actually his life. If something is not perfect, it is more painful than killing him. When developing the Macintosh in the early years, Jobs kept denying the existing design schemes and constantly improving the products, so that the progress of the entire project was repeatedly delayed.In the process of improving the Macintosh, Jobs used a posture almost paranoid, asking the engineers to make the motherboard circuit that the user could not see to be beautiful and eye-catching, asking the designer to carefully adjust the appearance of each punctuation mark on the keyboard, and repeatedly comparing the mainframe chassis. The different candidate colors for...

When developing the iPhone, the design team tried hundreds of different phone cases, some with only small differences, some with obvious differences, and some with completely different materials.In the end, it was up to Jobs to decide on one of the designs.But just a few months before the official release of the mobile phone, one day, Jobs was suddenly awakened by his subconscious mind, and he found that he was not satisfied with the shell scheme he had chosen before.He drove to the iPhone design team.Designers who have been working for a long time are afraid to speak out about Jobs' backlash.

"Steve Jobs was the Michelangelo of creating products," Jay Elliott commented. "He would keep painting and changing the canvas until he was sure he had a satisfactory solution." At Apple, people called Jobs' pre-release backlash a "reboot."Once Jobs is dissatisfied with the previously selected design scheme, he will "restart" the entire design process like restarting a computer, abolishing everything he has worked so hard to get, and start again from a link he thinks is appropriate.For designers, this is a huge pressure, but for products, it is the only way to perfection.

Jobs often warned employees that they must not give up the pursuit of perfection because of the difficulties they take for granted.Jobs always told employees about such a bad process: "When a designer shows a brilliant idea to an engineer, the engineer always says, 'This is impossible, we can't do this, it's not possible at all.'" So the designers had to give in to the engineers and let the engineers finish the product design 'if possible.' Finally, when they took the design drawings to the manufacturing department, the manufacturing department people said: 'We can't make this .’ In this way, people in every link take advantage of the tongue, but discard the perfect product.”

After Jobs and Ive, who had just returned to Apple in 1997, completed the colorful and transparent design of the iMac, they encountered such troubles in the engineering department.When Jobs and Ive showed the design prototype to the engineers, the engineers came up with 38 reasons why the idea couldn't be realized. Jobs said, "No, no. We're going to do this." The engineers said, "Okay. But why?" Jobs told them, "Because I'm the CEO and I think this stuff can be done." The engineers reluctantly obeyed Jobs' orders.But in the end, the market performance of iMac proved that Joe's insistence was right.

In fact, Jobs' pursuit of perfection is not limited to Apple's products.There was a salesman who used to work at the Apple Store in Pasadena, California, by the name of Ian Maddox.Not long after he started working at the Apple store, the store began refinishing its floors.Every night after the last customer left the store, the construction team began to lift up the floor tiles and replace them with new ones.The new floor tiles are dark gray granite imported from Italy, a style chosen by Jobs himself. "That floor tile was beautiful in the store," recalls Maddox. Not long after the new floor tiles were installed, Maddox found the store tensely assembled early one morning before all the managers, even the regional managers who rarely showed up.It turned out that Jobs brought four or five people to this specialty store in person this morning to check the effect of the new floor tiles.

Maddox discovered that Jobs was not happy with the new floor tiles.The new floor tiles were beautiful when they were first installed, but because the joint compound used was not good enough, it left unsightly stains when customers stepped on it.The floor tiles have only been laid for a few days, and the floor of the entire hall looks dirty and messy. Seeing that Jobs was unhappy, Maddox and the store managers were nervous.They looked at Jobs with trepidation.This time, Jobs was not only dissatisfied, but furious and furious.Jobs ordered the store manager that all the floor tiles must be replaced.As a result, the construction team was called back, carefully cleaned each floor tile, and re-laid the entire floor with new joint compound.

Jobs once said to reporters that his pursuit of perfection may also be a weakness, "Sometimes, 'doing the best' is the enemy of 'doing well'." Indeed, Jobs' pursuit of perfection has penetrated into everything Apple does.If this kind of pursuit is not well grasped, one-sided pursuit of the so-called "perfection" in form will sometimes backfire.For example, before the return of Jobs, Apple’s sales continued to decline and its market share dropped sharply. However, even in such a pessimistic atmosphere, Apple’s leaders and engineers still insisted that Apple computers are the most perfect products in the world. The downturn in the world is nothing but bad timing.

Kai-fu Lee, who personally experienced that difficult journey, commented: "Now it seems that it is this one-sided way of thinking that pursues perfection that has harmed Apple. The reason is actually very simple. From Apple's founder Steve Jobs to Apple's Designers only know that they are obsessed with the pursuit of perfect products, but they lose the market opportunity. They have enough self-confidence, but they lack the introspection to learn from their competitors humbly. They have a high degree of empathy for users They are rational, but they don’t know how to use a positive attitude to reduce the cost of users. Indeed, Apple computers look cool, run fast, and are very handy to use, but they cannot compete with other companies’ products in terms of hardware and software. The products are compatible, and the prices are high. In the end, Apple can only taste the taste of failure like its founder.”

Kai-fu Lee clarified a clear boundary for us - to play perfectionism, we must pursue perfection with insight into the future and knowing ourselves and the enemy like the returned Qiao Gangzhu. Compatibility and other issues are ignored, and one-sided pursuit of so-called "perfection" is bound to fail miserably.In this sense, Jobs' perfectionism also has different connotations before and after the return of the boss.