As a fan of Apple products and software, we often don’t hear about who is behind the great designs and user centered features. An article in BusinessWeek gives a small glimpse of Apple’s Design Process from Michael Lopp, senior engineering manager at Apple.

Pixel Perfect Mockups
Taking the time in the beginning to get it right will cause less problems (and expenses) down the line and “removes all ambiguity” upfront.

10 to 3 to 1
Apple designers come up with 10 entirely different mock ups, designed without any restrictions of any new feature. They eventually decide on three and spend more months on them before finally ending up with one strong decision.

Paired Design Meetings
Two meetings each week. One to brainstorm and think freely of any restrictions. The sky’s the limit. And another production meeting which is the opposite and the engineers and designers try and work out all the details.

Pony Meeting
Everyone thinks they want a pony, but is that what the Users want (or need)? The best ideas from the paired design meetings are presented to leadership to transform the pony into requirements and deliverables everyone can agree upon.

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Having done high fidelity mockups before, it really does take an enormous amount of time. However, it does give you results and removes a lot of questions and ambiguity. The 10 to 3 to 1 design process is great. I love the unfiltered creativity and Loop’s quote of the designs not being “seven in order to make three look good.” I’ve experienced it before. The paired design meetings are also a great idea. I remember having a creative no restrictions type of meeting before and the ideas that came out of it were spectacular (and even patentable). It is difficult for people to be creative when still thinking about the constraints. I read a good analogy for “The Pony.” A person may like ice cream and he may like pickles but that doesn’t mean he’ll like pickle-flavored ice cream.

All in all, it is nice to see that Apple takes the time to really think outside the box. Now if only other companies can be convinced to invest their time and money on the User Experience.