"Declaring the importance of industrial design may have at first been a purely emotional decision for Jobs, or he may have had some sense of design's subconscious importance to customers. Either way, those interviewed for this article say the emphasis on design was there at Apple's inception, and it was there because of Jobs.
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"There were three evaluations required at the inception of a product idea: a marketing requirement document, an engineering requirement document, and a user- experience document," Norman recalls. Rolston elaborates:"Marketing is what people want; engineering is what we can do; user experience is 'Here's how people like to do things.'"
"These three [documents] would be reviewed by a committee of executives, and if approved, the design group would get a budget, and a team leader would be assigned," Norman says. At that point, he continues, "the team would work on expanding the three requirement documents, inserting plans on how they hoped to meet the marketing, engineering, and user-experience needs--figures for the release date, ad cycle, pricing details, and the like." And the team's progress would be continually reviewed as the project went forward."
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