Steve Jobs’ real genius. It is important to recall that
he has no formal training whatsoever: not in management, and certainly not in engineering. Yet many engineers he’s worked with are amazed at his capacity to take critical engineering decisions solely based on his instinct. Often times, he was proven right. Woz said of it: “Steve did an excellent job of melding the marketing, operations and technology. He understood which technology was good and what people would like. It was a weird situation. He couldn't design a computer — he was never a designer or a programmer — but he could understand it well enough to understand what was good and what was bad.”
Even Bill Gates said it was what he envied most in him: “I’d give a lot to have Steve’s taste. I think in terms of intuitive taste, both for people and products, you know, we sat in Mac product reviews where there were questions about software choices, how things would be done, that I viewed as an engineering question, because that’s just how my mind works. And I’d see
Steve make the decision based on a sense of people and product that is even hard for me to explain. The way he does things is just different, and I think it’s magical.”
This is why Apple doesn’t use consumer testing: it doesn’t need it.
Steve Jobs alone is Apple’s consumer testing. The exceptional ease-of-use that distinguishes Apple from its competitors is largely attributable to this technique. Steve will not green-light a product that does not fully satisfy his standards — and these standards are pretty high.
Topic: Steven Jobs (Apple Company) (Read 10795 times)