Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by digitalcraft 5154 days ago
Good design is a strong component for your startup's success today. unlike some 10-15 years ago, users now have high expectations for your product design- thanks to the likes of Apple- and I see this is where inexperienced people get stuck- After it looks like Apple's, What next?
2 comments
brudgers 5154 days ago
It took Apple a couple of decades to really get serious about design aesthetics - e.g. the first iMacs. Earlier designs were primarily driven by function - nobody would describe an Apple II as "just gorgeous" or the first Macs as expressing much other than functional considerations.

Industrial design always matters, but your startup doesn't need a Dreyfuss or a Loewy.

link
ams6110 5154 days ago
Even the first Mac was pretty gorgeous compared to something like an IBM PC or clone.

A period where they did lose their elegance was when Jobs was in exile, they started looking like pretty ordinary (though still decent) PC systems.

link
zachrose 5154 days ago
Indeed:

>> Esslinger convinced Jobs that zero-draft tooling was essential. As well as gaining a subtle but powerful precision to the shape of Apple's cases, it decreased their actual size. A zero-draft enclosure could fit more tightly around the components within, and, despite the tooling expense, the resulting decrease in plastic could eventually decrease costs. Moreover, zero-draft molding, being an unusual, complex and expensive technology, helped prevent a growing problem for Apple: unauthorized clones.

http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/design/design2.html

link
brudgers 5153 days ago
That's not aesthetics.
link
brudgers 5154 days ago
>Even the first Mac was pretty gorgeous"

It was the same beige as everything else and had the same square corners. It was aesthetically equivalent to a C64 or a PET 16 or any one of a large number of name brands.

That's not to say it wasn't sound industrial design, only that it's aesthetics didn't differentiate it in the way the first iMac's aesthetics differentiated it.

link
cageface 5154 days ago
Yep. Launching something today that looks like the original Craigslist or even Google now is a waste of time. Expectations have changed.
link