Design Like Apple: Seven Principles For Creating Insanely Great Products, Services, and Experiences

Design Makes All the Difference

Beauty, ingenuity, and charisma create a unique competitive advantage.

The lesson to be learned from Apple's approach to design and its integration into the corporate culture is that design can make an enormous difference to a business. Apple is among a small number of public companies that have enthusiastically embraced design and invested in it as the single most important differentiating characteristic in their products and services. Design means that Apple products are unique and stand out in a crowd, from the minimalist styling and metal and glass enclosures to the seamless and fluid functioning of the software.

What do we really mean when we say design? The word is often used to describe many things. I think of design as both a process and an outcome. As a process, design is a verb, or how an object was created. As an outcome, design is a noun, the object itself, such as a computer or a lamp or a sofa. I'd like to add another meaning: Design as an experimental mind-set, a way of thinking about things that culminates in a fresh approach or in something new or innovative. Because Apple uses this full-court design approach to create its amazing products, I want to talk about the process and the outcomes to help you understand how to leverage design in your own work. First, let's break down the outcomes of Apple's design and development process ...