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Is it surprising that someone might not be able to communicate exactly how they want a calculator to look? It's perfectly believable to me that a person could

by kmill 11y ago

Is it surprising that someone might not be able to communicate exactly how they want a calculator to look? It's perfectly believable to me that a person could have their "ideal calculator" in mind, but, having had few opportunities to practice, would have a hard time communicating to a programmer the needed changes. Who knows--The original calculator could have looked like the one in Windows. (And why can't it be both relentless devotion to perfection and anal retention? Some people just happen to have refined tastes and the power and intelligence to wield it.) (Then there is also the question of form vs function, about which I'm getting a hint of you being more on the function end of things. All these questions of "better" and "worth it" can only be answered within some value framework.)

normloman 11y ago
I'm not on the function end of things. Form makes a measurable difference. But some of it's subjective. Steve might have had the perfect calculator in mind, but perfect for whom? We knew so little about usability in those days - it's likely his employees could have come up with something just as good. Just not "his" idea. And if you're leading a team, you can't think like that. You must recognize that other people have good ideas too (That's why you hired them!) Furthermore, if he wanted to communicate how the calculator should have looked, he could have DRAWN it.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  In your rush to attach the pejorative label of "bully" to Jobs, you've missed the point of the story. The developer made a tool which let Jobs rapidly iterate through a number of ideas until he saw what he liked. There's no reason to believe he knew what he wanted until he could experiment in a low-friction manner for himself. That's what the dev gave him.
  - blackbeard 11y ago
    This. You can't iterate through something without parameters and do the same. Look what happened to me: http://i.imgur.com/rCHiZyR.jpg http://i.imgur.com/rCHiZyR.jpg
  - normloman 11y ago
    No, you missed my point. Why does it matter what Steve Jobs liked? The tweaks in this story seemed to stem from Job's personal preference, and not any usability concerns.
    - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
      The personal preferences of Jobs were possibly the single biggest contributor to making Apple the most successful consumer technology company in history. No one is going to argue he wasn't a rampaging narcissistic asshole. Even so - it makes no sense at all to ignore how much he steered the look and feel of Apple products, and of late 20th/early 21st century design in general. He was the only person working in computing with a consistent interest in design. Microsoft and IBM had zero interest, DEC had a minor interest in making nice-looking minis and mainframes, and the 8/16 bit micros often had some product design applied to the casing. No one else was thinking about software and GUI aesthetics at all.
- Jtsummers 11y ago
  > Furthermore, if he wanted to communicate how the calculator should have looked, he could have DRAWN it. The problem here comes in the nitty gritty details. Short of a pixel perfect drawing, there's no easy way to convey what you want in specifics. And then there's the difference between the mind's eye, paper and screen. What looks good for the first two might not work on the third. Getting a parameterized version to modify allowed him to drop the paper/speech part and go straight from mind's eye to screen.
nsxwolf 11y ago
It actually reminds me of a proof of concept of the eventual Interface Builder from NeXTStep and XCode.

by kmill 11y ago

normloman 11y ago

I'm not on the function end of things. Form makes a measurable difference. But some of it's subjective. Steve might have had the perfect calculator in mind, but perfect for whom? We knew so little about usability in those days - it's likely his employees could have come up with something just as good. Just not "his" idea. And if you're leading a team, you can't think like that. You must recognize that other people have good ideas too (That's why you hired them!) Furthermore, if he wanted to communicate how the calculator should have looked, he could have DRAWN it.

waterlesscloud 11y ago
In your rush to attach the pejorative label of "bully" to Jobs, you've missed the point of the story. The developer made a tool which let Jobs rapidly iterate through a number of ideas until he saw what he liked. There's no reason to believe he knew what he wanted until he could experiment in a low-friction manner for himself. That's what the dev gave him.
- blackbeard 11y ago
  This. You can't iterate through something without parameters and do the same. Look what happened to me: http://i.imgur.com/rCHiZyR.jpg http://i.imgur.com/rCHiZyR.jpg
- normloman 11y ago
  No, you missed my point. Why does it matter what Steve Jobs liked? The tweaks in this story seemed to stem from Job's personal preference, and not any usability concerns.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    The personal preferences of Jobs were possibly the single biggest contributor to making Apple the most successful consumer technology company in history. No one is going to argue he wasn't a rampaging narcissistic asshole. Even so - it makes no sense at all to ignore how much he steered the look and feel of Apple products, and of late 20th/early 21st century design in general. He was the only person working in computing with a consistent interest in design. Microsoft and IBM had zero interest, DEC had a minor interest in making nice-looking minis and mainframes, and the 8/16 bit micros often had some product design applied to the casing. No one else was thinking about software and GUI aesthetics at all.
Jtsummers 11y ago
> Furthermore, if he wanted to communicate how the calculator should have looked, he could have DRAWN it. The problem here comes in the nitty gritty details. Short of a pixel perfect drawing, there's no easy way to convey what you want in specifics. And then there's the difference between the mind's eye, paper and screen. What looks good for the first two might not work on the third. Getting a parameterized version to modify allowed him to drop the paper/speech part and go straight from mind's eye to screen.

nsxwolf 11y ago

It actually reminds me of a proof of concept of the eventual Interface Builder from NeXTStep and XCode.