Designers — Learn to say ‘NO’ and ‘Focus’ on what’s most important

In 2014, John Ive, the British-American Designer in his interview with Graydon Carter to Vanity Fair said that “Idea is a thought that becomes a conversation and to Start on any Idea we need to talk”. John Ive served as a CDO at Apple Inc. and worked very closely with Steve Jobs for many years. He shared his thoughts about what Steve Jobs taught him about ‘Focusing’ and saying ‘NO’.

“Focus is not something you aspire to.. or something that you want to do on Monday. It’s something you do every minute. You can achieve so much when you really focus”, John expressed.

What Focus means is saying ‘NO’ when you believe with every bone in your body about what you think. It’s a phenomenal expression of which you wake up thinking about it, but you say ‘NO’ to it because you are focusing on what’s important.

John Ive explains how Steve Jobs helped him to ‘Focus’ and say ‘No’ when he got fixated on an idea shared by his team. He said that Steve was ruthlessly brilliant with his insight.

Steve said, “I think you want people to like you. I thought you will really help the workup as it’s the most important, not how you believed that you will be perceived by other people.”

He was absolutely right. As designers, we need to draw a line between what we like and what is good for the product. The difference between a biased perspective and an honest one is how you keep the work your first priority and give a rest to your other thoughts.

Best ideas are created through multiple conversations and the best products are those which works without manuals or instructions. And to provide the same - Designers need to FOCUS specifically on providing the best experience to the users by giving extreme importance to the product usability and by saying NO to all blurred thoughts.

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The views expressed in this article are my personal.