Apple’s design process for web startups

BusinessWeek has a nice writeup of Michael Lopp’s SXSW talk on Apple’s design process. Apple starts with pixel-perfect mockups to remove ambiguity, and they design “10 entirely different mock ups of any new feature”. “Later they whittle that number to three, spend more months on those three and then finally end up with one strong decision.” They also have two meetings each week: one is for going crazy with wild design ideas, the other is for figuring out how to actually implement the ideas on an engineering level. This got me thinking about design for web startups. Every once in awhile I’ll see a web design/interface that just blows me away, and it makes me wonder how most of the other startups I see can ignore the power of design? Apple’s process reveals the truth: interface design is the most important part of your product because it’s the part that touches us all directly and either inspires us or leaves us wanting more.