Steve Jobs: Design & The Washing Machine
As you might know I have a huge (complete!) collection of Wired Magazines. Regularly I grab a random copy and browse through it. Today I grabbed a 1996 issue with Steve Jobs on the cover. I only read half of the article but was thrilled when I found a quote that made a huge impression on me when I first read it.
The last question that Gary Wolf asks is “Is there anything well designed today that inspires you?”. Steve Jobs then tells a very personal story about his ideas about design and how he and his family deals with technology.
I can recommend reading the whole article but i also want to quote this one particular part here:
Design is not limited to fancy new gadgets. Our family just bought a new washing machine and dryer. We didn’t have a very good one so we spent a little time looking at them. It turns out that the Americans make washers and dryers all wrong. The Europeans make them much better - but they take twice as long to do clothes! It turns out that they wash them with about a quarter as much water and your clothes end up with a lot less detergent on them. Most important, they don’t trash your clothes. They use a lot less soap, a lot less water, but they come out much cleaner, much softer, and they last a lot longer.
We spent some time in our family talking about what’s the trade-off we want to make. We ended up talking a lot about design, but also about the values of our family. Did we care most about getting our wash done in an hour versus an hour and a half? Or did we care most about our clothes feeling really soft and lasting longer? Did we care about using a quarter of the water? We spent about two weeks talking about this every night at the dinner table. We’d get around to that old washer-dryer discussion. And the talk was about design.
We ended up opting for these Miele appliances, made in Germany. They’re too expensive, but that’s just because nobody buys them in this country. They are really wonderfully made and one of the few products we’ve bought over the last few years that we’re all really happy about. These guys really thought the process through. They did such a great job designing these washers and dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I have out of any piece of high tech in years.
From an interview by Gary Wolf with Steve Jobs for Wired Magazine in 1996 titled “Give The People What They Want“
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Abdur-Rahman Advany said,
October 21, 2007 @ 2:53 pm (14:53)
Good story, but is good design is really difficult to make. How do you balance function and form. And how do you decide what function to include and what not. I still find it a very difficult concept to grasp.
brock said,
October 21, 2007 @ 10:48 pm (22:48)
I design things for a living. What constantly drives me crazy is that most of the stuff you buy or look at is just not thought out. Not at all. Its almost like the people that create and manufacture it never use it or test it first.
Design really isn’t that difficult if you constantly look at what you are doing like a user would. Of course, proper aesthetics is the time consuming part. Keeping it simple separates the men from the boys.
That is what Apple and others like Miele that Jobs mentioned are particularly good at. We have a saying “Good enough, never is.” Unfortunately in this day and age, most people never take note of this mantra. Just the opposite.
Mr Roberto said,
October 22, 2007 @ 5:37 am (5:37)
Jobs buys Miele appliances. That speaks volumes about Apple’s strategy vis-a-vis design and price. Mr Jobs, Miele is out of the price range of even most Europeans, let alone Americans. I suppose the moral of the story is: want good design? Become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company first and you can afford it.
October 22, 2007 @ 10:47 am (10:47)
>I suppose the moral of the story is: want good design? Become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company first and you can afford it.
I guess you’re missing the point here. First of all, imho you don’t need (a lot of) money to take the time (two weeks(!)) to discuss the various trade-offs of the purchase decisions you make. If you’re not looking around, chances are slim you will find good design, no matter how fat your wallet is. Next to that, people with money *and* taste are quite rare imho.
And then, since when is Miele this unaffordable, millionaires only brand? It’s expensive, but well, all I can say is, we used to have a Miele washing machine at my parents house and it lasted for 25 years or such… ^_^
October 25, 2007 @ 1:45 pm (13:45)
@Boris: Did you notice there’s something wrong with your Feedburner-feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Th.....trepreneur
It’s not updated since you mentioned the name “Steve Jobs”
October 25, 2007 @ 1:50 pm (13:50)
Thanks Jasper! Going to fix it right away!
Diederik said,
October 26, 2007 @ 7:56 pm (19:56)
Hi Boris,
Your feedburner feed still isn’t working. As a matter of fact it doesn’t give any of your feeds anymore since you said you’re going to fix it…..