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I'm going by Ive's interview plus off-hand comments I've heard from ex-Apple employees http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/01/a-fireside-chat-with-app

by sriramk 17y ago

I'm going by Ive's interview plus off-hand comments I've heard from ex-Apple employees http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/01/a-fireside-chat-with-apples-jonathan-ive/ http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/01/a-fireside-c...

jmtulloss 17y ago
When you have 10,000 employees (or however many they have now), it's very possible to do focus groups and usability testing completely internally. A startup with 3 guys, not nearly as easy.
- DannoHung 17y ago
  Hmm.. maybe, expert focus groups for a non-expert product. That's actually sort of interesting.
  - DrJokepu 17y ago
    Surely Apple must have shazillions af accountants, lawyers, logistics professionals, etc., that is people who are neither technology nor marketing experts.
marcusbooster 17y ago
The "We don’t do focus groups" statement from that article is referring to how Apple decides what products to build, not how they are built.
- sriramk 17y ago
  You're probably correct. I doubt that even Jobs and Ive are superhuman enough to build the right product at the beginning. I do wonder how they do this with their culture of secrecy. Any focus group they run must be quite small or they must be splitting up their focus group tests. For example, I remember reading a story about someone testing out the iPhone UI alone in a contraption in a box as opposed to the real hardware.
  - weaksauce 17y ago
    I heard a while back that they would intentionally use fake products for testing to see what group leaked the information. Kind of like having a watermark in the review copies of the movies given to the academy and sundance.
  - grinich 17y ago
    For example, I remember reading a story about someone testing out the iPhone UI alone in a contraption in a box as opposed to the real hardware. Why is this a problem? Other than having multitouch capability, the UI didn't depend on the hardware at all.

by sriramk 17y ago

jmtulloss 17y ago

When you have 10,000 employees (or however many they have now), it's very possible to do focus groups and usability testing completely internally. A startup with 3 guys, not nearly as easy.

DannoHung 17y ago
Hmm.. maybe, expert focus groups for a non-expert product. That's actually sort of interesting.
- DrJokepu 17y ago
  Surely Apple must have shazillions af accountants, lawyers, logistics professionals, etc., that is people who are neither technology nor marketing experts.

marcusbooster 17y ago

The "We don’t do focus groups" statement from that article is referring to how Apple decides what products to build, not how they are built.

sriramk 17y ago
You're probably correct. I doubt that even Jobs and Ive are superhuman enough to build the right product at the beginning. I do wonder how they do this with their culture of secrecy. Any focus group they run must be quite small or they must be splitting up their focus group tests. For example, I remember reading a story about someone testing out the iPhone UI alone in a contraption in a box as opposed to the real hardware.
- weaksauce 17y ago
  I heard a while back that they would intentionally use fake products for testing to see what group leaked the information. Kind of like having a watermark in the review copies of the movies given to the academy and sundance.
- grinich 17y ago
  For example, I remember reading a story about someone testing out the iPhone UI alone in a contraption in a box as opposed to the real hardware. Why is this a problem? Other than having multitouch capability, the UI didn't depend on the hardware at all.