- Let's review a case study,
iPhone versus Blackberry.
If anyone had told Blackberry
users in 2005 or 2007
that in 10 years,
a mobile phone would have one primary button,
they would have never believed it.
In the early 2000s,
the more buttons on a mobile phone,
actually, any device,
the more complicated,
and hence more sophisticated,
it was considered.
If anyone asked users at this time
how they would like to
see the new mobile phone model,
they would have wanted more buttons, not fewer.
So what happened?
Did users ask for a simplistic design?
No, they wanted additional functionality.
Was it the smartphone market
and the intense competition from cheaper brand?
No, that was still not the case.
So what happened then?
When Apple released the iPhone in 2007,
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
laughed at its chances,
but apps, the ease of creation, ease of use,
unlimited functionality
and full extensibility,
along with simplistic user experience,
literally killed Blackberry.
No one could believe it at that time.
The only way to predict this
was to come up with a solution
and validate it with customers
through early prototyping and customer feedback.
In one of the most groundbreaking
announcements of the 21st century,
Steve Jobs introduced
the iPhone in 2007,
as a combination of three separate devices,
which has before been imagined
as one single device.
And customers loved it.
Even though the 2007 version
of the iPhone had 3 1/2-inch diagonal
screen with subpar resolution
and was not, by far,
the most reliable device to use,
it stood out as a truly
revolutionary product.
So, how did Steve Jobs know
that customers would love it?
You may think he was a
product visionary and a genius.
Well, maybe, but besides this vision
and his ability to put
himself in his customers' shoes,
Steve Jobs conducted intense validation
through prototyping and early user research,
and all this allowed him to shape the model
in such a way that it
immediately met customer needs.
It may be hard to believe now
that the touchless device
that blew everyone's minds
didn't come about so easily.
The iPhone was the result of
years of hard work by
Apple's industrial designers.
They built a large number
of prototypes and CAD designs,
and ran hundreds of design sprints
in their quest to produce
their ultimate smartphone.
Multiple prototypes were created,
and multiple prototypes failed
as a result of customer research
over three years of an intense
discovery process that
led to iPhone creation.